Snake Bite
by Daastan Go
Summary: A series of brutal murders of young women plague the city; and when a mysterious customer shows up in Devil May Cry, Dante finds himself trapped inside surreal dreams . . . unable to break free.
1. Dead, Naked Chicks

**Snake Bite**

 **Summary** : A series of brutal murders of young women plague the city; and when a mysterious customer shows up in Devil May Cry, Dante finds himself trapped inside surreal dreams . . . unable to break free.

 **Disclaimer** : **Devil May Cry** and all its characters are Capcom's and its respective creators' legal property. I'm not making any money off this story; however, all the Original Characters, Original Plot-lines, and Original Themes are my own.

 **Rating** : Written for Mature Readers due to sexual, violent, and disturbing situations.

 **Main Themes and Genres** : Horror, Drama, Mystery, Family, and Angst.

 **Supporting Themes and Genres** : Tragedy, Suspense, and Erotica.

 **Prominent Characters (in order of importance)** : Dante and Trish.

 **AN** : Treat this story as if it occurs in the canon universe as Dante will take this case on like he does in canon Anime/Manga and Videogames. I've toned down Dante's demonic powers to make him more approachable and human as a character.

 **Chapter One** : Dead, Naked Chicks

# # # # # #

"Dead naked women . . . this isn't what I usually got in mind," said the white-haired man, soaking under the heavy downpour in the alleyway.

The wind was picking up speed, and his long, dark coat was flying in the wind. It had been raining for the past couple of weeks. Sometimes, it was just a light spit easing off the building humidity; but these days it had been coming down hard.

"Dante," said the tall woman with long blonde hair standing behind him. She was wearing light blue jeans and a black shirt underneath a small, brown coloured leather jacket. Her jacket was glazed with wet and so was her hair.

"Well—" Dante, leaning on his knees, looked back at the woman who was the spitting image of his mother and frowned. "What am I supposed to do here?" he asked, pointing the thin and long barrel of his gun at the bare body of a young woman dumped just next to a dumpster.

The woman sighed and rubbed her shoulders. "Enzo got us a good case. The families think—"

"Think what, Trish?" Dante said harshly, cutting her off.

He quickly got to his feet and shoved the gun back into his dirty brown pants. His face was running with rain water. He wiped his face on his coat's sleeve and looked at Trish again.

"How did that fat-bellied moron pull this detective crap on me?" Dante asked, pointing his hands at himself.

Trish gave him a hard look and leant against the rough wall of the apartment just behind them. She looked up at the full moon shining through a tiny little hole in the clouds gathering into a soft pile in the sky.

The small alleyway was between two shabby looking apartment buildings that below the overcast sky. The squalor of the slums meant little to the rich that lived far away in the safety of suburbs. Many suffered, cried, and even died in these unpleasant conditions.

Dante folded his arms across his chest, looking at two hookers flicking their wide-open coats' collars up at the two passersby's just across the street. It was past 12 a.m., and usually the streets were filed with prostitutes and pimps; but in the wake of recent murders, police had started patrolling the town and no one was allowed to roam around this late at night.

A police tape was stretched across the entrance of the alleyway, and a short and pudgy detective was standing with a couple of police officers close to the police car. So far, this second murder was a hush-hush affair.

He brought his gaze back to the body: she was a young woman around her late twenties. Her body was rock hard from the chill in the air and the rigor-mortis that had already settled in.

Her golden hair was spread over her right cheek, and her whole body was pale, glistering with the rain drops trailing down to the floor. Her green eyes, glazed with rain water, were wide-open and shone at the bulb's light.

Dante tore his eyes away and leant against the back door of the pub, making his eyes follow the thin trails of rainwater on the muddied street.

"Look, Dante," Trish said, trying to meet Dante's elusive grayish eyes, "you were going to end up on the streets if Enzo hadn't done something."

Dante snorted and palmed his wet face.

"What more do you want then?" Trish said curtly, raising her hands.

Dante brought his gaze back to hers and unfolded his arms. "What more do I want? If anyone started paying attention to our amazing detective abilities, we're screwed, a'right?"

Thunder flashed like a blue flame in the sky, and, suddenly, the heavy rain mellowed down to a steady drizzle. A thin plume of smoke was steadily billowing into night sky from the roof of a twenty-four hour restaurant just a block away.

Trish's face cracked into a sarcastic smile. "Are you afraid of that you're not good detective, my son?" Trish teased, maintaining her meaningful smile.

"Don't be so cheeky, mom, or your son might spank you for being impolite," Dante, putting full stress on _mom_ , threw an askew smile at Trish.

"You have fake papers, a genuine letter requesting investigation from both the families," Trish said, holding up all five fingers of her right hand, "so what's the problem?"

Dante hunched under his coat and looked at his warm smoke-like breath in the air. "I'm not a fucking detective," he said calmly, breathing out the warm air in his lungs.

Trish clapped her hands together. "Is that all?"

"I think you're taking this a little too lightly," Dante said and pulled up his coat's collar, "I've got no experience with this sort of work, so I won't be able to do anything for these families. And besides, we don't even know if this is the work of a demon," he added and ran his hand through his jaw-length white hair that framed his pale face.

Getting angry at Dante's persistence to drop this case, Trish turned her head at the round detective slowly making his way to them. He sloshed through the muddy alley, stopping for a few seconds at each and every window.

Dante cocked his brow at him and then turned his eyes slightly at the angry sounds from the two hookers being dragged into the police car. The man was almost round with three tires around his huge belly. The ham-fisted detective hitched himself further up to the window pane and then peered inside.

"Ah—" he sighed out, and then clumsily made his way to Dante and Trish. He stopped at the last window. "So have you found anything interesting, private-eye?"

Dante pushed himself off the hard door. "I was waiting for you, sir," he said in an artificially unconvincing voice, managing a smile that was somewhat polite: the smile seemed to crack his stone-cold-sober face just a little.

"Call me Blake," the oddly oversized officer said, inching around the dumpster to get close to the body.

"From what I've heard, this looks the same as before," Dante said slowly, bending his legs to kneel close to the body.

"Hm, yes," Blake said and passed his hand over his few frizzled hair. Most of them had probably been taken by age. Now he was left with just a small round patch at the top of his thinning head.

Trish zipped up her jacket. It was strangely cold. Even a demon like her could sense something strange lingering in the air. Dante, keeping up his stubborn attitude, had yet to notice it.

"This is the second murder in the city, and it looks like we won't be getting anything from here, as well," Blake said lowly, easing to his feet.

Dante raised his head to look up at Blake. "What do you mean?"

Blake fished out a handkerchief from his pocket. "You haven't seen the first murder site, then?" he asked, giving a light dab to a small cut on his left wrist.

"No—" Dante stole a furious look at Trish. "I was hired recently," he said, returning his gaze to the body.

"I see," Blake sighed out and shoved the handkerchief back into his pocket. "The first body was dumped in an alleyway about seven blocks away." He pointed his hand outwards.

"At the back of a dance club—I think," Dante said, pulling his leather glove on his right hand.

Blake nodded in response. "Yes, and she looked very similar."

Dante gently brushed a few golden bangs aside and turned her head slightly to look at small wispy marks on her neck. "She looks very white. I don't think there is a single drop of blood in her entire body," he said, sounding serious at the sight of small black veins appearing dead and web-like on her entire body.

"This is what the last postmortem report told us," Blake agreed and looked back at the police car and the ambulance that had just stopped in front of the alleyway.

Dante pulled his hand back and ran his eyes over the mud around the body. "Does it say how this could've happened?"

"Sadly no," Blake said in reply, rubbing his hands together.

"What are these?" Dante asked, pressing his fingers slightly over two puncture wounds where the girl's neck and jaw ran together. "Is that a—" he stopped for a second, "—a snake bite?"

"Yes, the girl before her had them, too," Blake answered, stooping his back to take a good look at the two perfectly round black holes in the girl's neck.

"These fangs are huge," Dante said in a voice that had a great note of surprise, "but they're very close to each other."

"What are you suggesting?" Blake asked, pulling himself to a slightly straight position with just a little droop to his back.

"Was the first girl poisoned?" Dante asked quickly, looking at Blake from the corner of his eyes.

"No, but it would seem that some blood might have been lost this way," Blake said, looking curiously at Dante.

Dante took in some fresh air. "The marks are too close," he said thoughtfully, "the snake couldn't have been that large, but the holes are pretty big . . . "

"The pathologists have yet to determine what kind of snake it is," Blake explained and looked over to Trish who stood quietly close to the dumpster. "Sometimes, I really hate this job for its dubious reasoning methods," he added lost in thought.

"It couldn't have been a large snake," Dante said and got to his feet.

"Really?" Blake asked and wiped his eyes clean—rain was making it hard for him to see the street clearly.

"Large snakes aren't poisonous, so they don't have fangs," Dante said, stooping a bit to flick mud off his pants. "If that was the case, then there should've been a whole lot of teeth marks around her neck."

"You watch animal planet—nice hobby. Me? I can't get over beer and late night television," Blake said, softly laughing afterwards.

"I have my interests," Dante said awkwardly and stepped away from the body. "By the way, you said the first girl lost some blood this way. It could be possible that she lost all of it through these wounds."

"That isn't possible," Blake said, shaking his hand. "The report suggests the wounds were made very quickly."

"What?" Dante asked, wearing a grim look on his face.

"Well, according to the doctor, whatever bit her pulled out the teeth very quickly," Blake said to Dante and pulled out a cigarette pack from his coat, "so it isn't even possible that it managed to suck her dry in mere 15 to 20 seconds."

"Odd—" Dante said, cupping his chin.

"Okay, boys, take her away," Blake said to the men slowly making their way through the alleyway, carrying the body bag.

The men stuffed the body into the bag and carried it out of the alley.

"Want some smoke?" Blake asked, holding out the pack in his hand.

"Thanks, I don't smoke," Dante said with a wave of his hand.

"A non-smoking detective? You must be the first of your kind," Blake said and drew on the cigarette clamped between his lips.

Dante smiled in reply and felt a strange chill steal itself slowly over his entire body: the air around him was menacing and cold.

"See you around, young man," Blake said, stretching out his hand. "If you want to see the post-mortem report, then you can drop by my office in the morning."

"Sure, thanks," Dante said and shook Blake's hand.

Trish's eyes followed Blake till he stepped into his car and left.

"Still not interested?" Trish said, eyeing the hard look on Dante's face.

Dante remained quiet for a few seconds. "Let's go and see the report tomorrow, then we can decide," he said and took quick steps out of the quiet alley.

It was past 1 a.m. The streets were quiet and the clouds were rolling out, leaving a clear sky, studded with countless stars, behind . . .

# # # # # #


	2. Missing Girls

**Chapter Two** : Missing Girls

# # # # # #

Sun rose bright and high above the squalid streets of this neglected part of town. Devil May Cry's flashy sign had blown several fuses, and now, only the Cry sign flashed continually after several long seconds.

The shop was closed at this time of the hour, as the sun had just burst through the night and only a hue of red was visible at the far end of the sky. Shafts of bright light travelled down to the ground, glancing on the puddle of an open-gutter just by the love planet. The authorities had yet to take any notice of it.

Three hookers were lazily walking down the lane, exhausted by the night's ordeal of hide-and-seek with the police cars. One of them laughed, showing off the cash they had made over the night. The other two shared in the joys of money making. It was enough to keep them off the streets for weeks.

Their soft laughs wafted to keen ears that stood under the hanks of white hair: Dante stood behind the partly open window, looking up at the light spreading across the sky. A good night sleep seemed like a week-old memory. He tossed and turned in his bed all night, trying to make up his mind about this case.

He pressed his head against the window, letting the soft morning draft cool his body. The trickles of water on his bare chest tingled under the gentle breeze. He was in a habit of taking a quick shower in the morning, and today was no different.

Dante palmed his face, wiping away a few drops from the corner of his eyes. He cocked his eyes up at the crashing sound from the bathroom up stairs. Trish had done something again.

"Dante—ow—" Trish shouted, limping down stairs with a hand on her hip.

Dante thrust his hands into his pants' pockets, still looking out into the distance. "What did you do this time?" he asked and slightly knitted his brow.

"Your bathroom will kill me!" she said with a snarl and hopped down the last stair.

"Yeah, and I'm sure, and my toilet will mess you up someday—so what's new?" he said sarcastically and rolled his eyes.

Trish leant on the handrail, gritting her teeth. "I fell on your bathroom floor and almost broke my hip," she said, soothingly massaging her hip. "But the way it hurts, I think I really have broken something this time."

"Really?" Dante asked, sounding amused. "Don't worry," he said, keeping the note of tease in his voice, "I am sure it will heal . . . eventually."

Trish straightened her back with a loud cracking sound, and slowly walked to the sofa lying close to Dante's self-made micro-demon wall-museum.

"Wow—that was loud." Dante chuckled and pulled his head back. "You are getting old—the clone of my mom," he teased, taking a few steps to his shirt, draped around the office chair.

Trish cautiously lowered herself on the sofa and pursed her red-painted lips. "Your childish teasing has no effect on a demon like me," she huffed, leaning back into the comfy sofa.

"Yeah, whatever. Just keep your over-sized butt off my tiles next time," Dante said straightforwardly, slipping the light blue t-shirt on.

Trish jumped to her feet, looking livid with anger. "Oversized butt?" she repeated, contorting her face as much as she could.

Dante looked lazily at her. "Don't over-react, Trish. This isn't the first time you've broken something in my bathroom. Last time, it was the sink," he accused, keeping his tone flat.

"It is not my fault you're so poor," Trish shot back, lowering her sharp tone down just a little bit.

"To think that papa Mundas had taught you some bathroom manners—guess I was wrong," he said honestly and flopped down on the chair sitting by to the giant pool-table.

Trish opened her mouth to say something when the door creaked open. A fat man stepped into the shop with a huge smile pasted on his round, unshaven face. His round belly jiggled as he clumped for the half-demon who cringed his face at the sight of him.

"Finally found some spare time, eh, fat boy?" Dante asked and pulled rebellion, which was stabbed through the wall, down to his lap.

The round man sent a toothy grin Dante's way that was met with a sour scowl.

"Are you still mad, Dante?" the man asked, stepping back a little at the shimmer of Dante's sharp blade.

Dante, letting out a sarcastic chuckle, turned rebellion in his hand. "Now why would I be mad at you, Enzo? I guess you took the case without asking me, and sent me off for some wild detective work by hogging all that cash just like a lil' pig," he ended with a wry smile. "Why would I be mad?"

Enzo felt a dry lump in his throat. He turned his eyes around and looked at the unsightly demons Dante had skewered to the walls like ghastly Halloween-party scares. Several Demons were missing lower bodies altogether.

Dante had just pinned them to the walls like trophies. Their skins were leathery and dry; even their jagged teeth looked like rusty kitchen knives; but they still looked very real and very ugly.

Enzo always felt a chill clasp him whenever he entered the shop. And, sometimes, he had unmistakably seen a shadow or two dancing under their remains. He never ventured into the shop when Dante was not around—it was just too frightening.

"Look, Dante," Enzo began, sliding his gaze over Dante's large frown, "we're partners, right?"

"You know what, Enzo, I'm not gonna to repeat something I've said about a million times before," Dante said and stuck his sword into the wooden-floor, "Trish's wrecking havoc all over my place—so, getting to the point, I need that damn money—where is it?"

Trish slowly got to her feet, still feeling a stab of pain in her hips. "You're not thinking 'bout returning it, are you?" she asked, locking her electric blue eyes with Dante's.

"That's none of anyone's business," he said with an air of finality and stood up, leaving the standing sword pinned to the ground. "It's my decision to make, not yours—or yours." He pointed at Enzo.

"You haven't even seen the post-mortem report yet," she said in surprise, holding her ground.

"What difference will it make? I'm sure they must have found the killer snake's name by now," he answered back, curling his fingers around the metallic handle of his father's keepsake.

Trish sighed and folded her arms. "Why don't you go and check it out first. If they have found something, then I'll back off and you can return the money—deal?" Trish asked, wearing a wisp of a smile on her face.

Dante looked at the demon who showed more than a passing resemblance to his late mother, and said, "fine."

Enzo pulled his shabby cap down from his head and flicked off the dust at its crown. "I knew you'd come around," he said, smiling.

Dante said nothing in reply. He grabbed his light bluish coat from the hanger, casting a brief glance at the kick-knacks lumped together behind his drums, and hastily put it on.

"I asked Enzo not to give you the money, Dante," Trish said unfolding her arms.

Dante's face showed a sudden flicker of amusement. "Really? Since when have you sided with this moron?" he asked, slipping his shiny guns under his coat, into the empty holsters.

Trish took a few paces to Dante and stood next to him. "I knew you'd do something rash, that's why," she said, playfully ruffling up his grey hair.

"Right," Dante said with the roll of his grey eyes and combed his hair with his long fingers into a perfect matted mess.

"I cleaned the car this morning, Dante. It's shining like a gem," Enzo said, clicking his fingers.

"That car cost me a fortune. There better not be a single scratch on it," Dante warned, walking to his sharp sword that still looked as new as the day his father gave it to him.

Enzo let out a nervous laugh. "Don't be stupid—why would I do that?" Enzo said, scratching his messy noodle like hair.

"Because anything's expected of you," Dante said and pulled his sword out. Resting the sword on his arm like a spear, Dante clenched the handle in his hand. He aimed his sword at the giant dog's head just above his office chair and threw it like a boomerang.

Its sharp edge shimmered in the morning, light glimpsing on its edges, as it whirled forward with lightning fast speed and got speared into the wide-open mouth of the dead demon-dog.

"Bull's-eye!" Dante winked, curling up his lips into a smile. He stepped out of the office, followed by the smiling and overly-impressed Trish.

Enzo squinted his eyes at the fresh blood dripping from the dog's mouth. He gulped down the air stuck in his throat, and ran out of the office when he heard a whining sound put out by the long-dead demon-dog.

# # # # # #

Dante remained pretty quiet through out the ride. A couple of times he asked Enzo to shut up and look ahead when he almost ran the car over an old lady crossing the road, with a tiny prairie dog. He was apparently discussing latest fashion trends with Trish sitting merrily on the back seat.

He had yet to get his hands on the money, but Enzo and Trish's plans for a shopping spree in that expensive mall had reached to unfathomable limits. These two were getting on his nerves . . .

The streets were busy so Enzo could not put a spurt on and get out of the traffic blocked for about half a kilometre. When the road cleared, he increased the speed and then eased up near the police station.

They reached the station at quarter to ten, half an hour late than their scheduled time. Dante wanted to give Enzo a few heavy whacks for taking the wrong and long way around, but he decided to let it go, and instead, showed him a nasty frown as a future reminder.

The police station was literally in the good part of the city where the supposedly upright citizens lived. The mayor had not bothered himself to open a branch at the unprivileged part of town where criminals thrived and women lived in poor conditions. There had been an upsurge of crime there in the recent month or so—the mayor finally put his foot down.

Dante knew what made him stomp his feet and scream like a little tramp high on processed sugar, but there was no point in bringing that to the police's notice. The first murder was that of his close friend's daughter. He screamed murder and what not at the election campaign . . . the killer had yet to be found.

Dante stepped in through the front door, greeted by every female eye **.** He always got all the attention. Even the male officers found him almost offensively good looking with his perfectly chiseled features, sharp grey eyes, and lissome physique.

He exchanged a few nice words and plenty of smiles with the female officer at the entrance and placed his guns on the table. The officer looked at him with awe as he made his way to the short and pudgy detected screwing himself around in his little three-wheeled chair, just a couple of feet away.

The old detective looked at him, slightly wide-eyed with enthusiasm. "You made it," he said, eyeing Dante's happy face that suddenly turned a bit cautious, "a little late, no?"

Dante directed a quick annoyed look Enzo's way. "Sorry 'bout that," he said quickly, "got stuck in traffic."

Blake waved his hand. "No need to apologize. The traffic here can be a bitch," he commented, reaching for a pile of files on his desk. "Ah, this is the one. It came this morning." He pulled out a red file from the clutter of others on his messy desk and handed it over to Dante.

Dante opened the file and flicked through the three paged autopsy report. It was not what he was excepting.

"Not quite what you were expecting, huh?" Blake's voice broke his disbelief. "It's the same old story—no one knows how these two girls died."

Dante placed the file back on the table and stood tight-lipped, avoiding Trish's wide smile and Enzo's annoying gurgling chuckles that they had won this round to get some much-needed cash.

"Several girls had gone missing before and between the two murders," Blake said, holding out another file for Dante to take. "They still haven't been found."

"You think these disappearances are connected?" Dante asked and took the file from Blake's hand.

Blake slowly got to his feet, passing his hand over his sagging stomach. It looked like a giant, round doughnut. "We aren't sure, but we're definitely investigating into it—could be anything at this point in this freaky case."

Dante did not say anything. This really was beginning to look quite ghastly.

"You can take this copy home," he said, grabbing a large chocolate doughnut from the open doughnut-box.

"Thanks," Dante said almost absentmindedly.

Blake brushed off a few crumbs from his shirt and spoke, "by the way, you're quite good with the ladies, young man."

Dante gave a cocky smirk in reply, casting a brief glance at the female officers around them—they returned his smile quite heartily.

"If you were an officer here, no woman would've done anything," he said honestly, giving a soft laugh afterwards. "Anyway, you can get in contact with me any time."

"Thanks," Dante said, sensing his thoughts take a flight . . .

"I've got to get to work now, young man. See you around," he said and slumped down in his chair.

Trish took the file from Dante's hand and parted her lips in a full victory-smile. "Let's go. And by the way, I win."

"Whatever," Dante shot back, and strode to the lady still smiling at him with his guns in her hands . . .

# # # # # #


	3. Night Visit

**Chapter Three:** Night Visit

 **Rating Warning** : Mild Sexual Content.

# # # # # #

"You know what," Dante said, throwing the thick file on his messy table, "I think you've lost some of those loose screws in your head, Mom."

Trish leant on the table cluttered with empty soda cans, pizza boxes, girly magazines, and other things under all that heap of trash.

"All I'm asking is that you should start investigating by questioning the families," she said with a lazy wave of her right hand, "that way, we might find out more about the girls, and—"

"Let me correct myself," he said, feigning innocence, "you've lost _all_ the screws in your head, down _my_ toilet, which you broke yesterday."

She straightened her back with a loud and long sigh. "You'll not get anywhere without questioning the families."

He casually put both his legs onto the table, throwing a mountain of dirt stuck under his shoes on the sprawl of dirty magazines. "I've been doing things my way, way before you came into this world," he said and grabbed one of the magazines from the table.

She folded her arms across her chest, looking stern and rather fed up with Dante's ' _I want to do it my way_ ' attitude. "And how did you manage it? I'm very curious—because you're poor these days, you know?"

He sent a cheeky smile her way and crossed his legs. "You'll find out soon enough. Right now, I just wanna relax," he said, burying his nose in that magazine filled with nothing but page after page of almost nude women, "I'm already too depressed after seeing those dead women."

After finally realizing that it was a dead-end with Dante and his bull headedness, Trish turned around with a defeated sigh only to find a timid woman sticking her head through the partially open door.

"Can I help you?" She took two steps to the woman, who looked as if she had just been caught in broad daylight, jumping around in her knickers.

She pulled her head back and disappeared for a few seconds and then almost toddled through the main door, holding her purse tightly in her hands.

"Is—is this Devil May Cry?" she asked in a strange, choked back voice.

"Great, now we are getting customers who can't even read," he complained from behind the table, still busy with the nearly pornographic magazine. "Look, sweetheart, today is Monday, but I'm treating it like a Sunday—come back tomorrow."

Trish flicked Dante an angry glance, which was met with no apparent response from the Devil lost in his daily indulgence. She returned all of her attention to the woman still standing by the door, looking ready to bail out and run far far away from this place in the opposite direction.

"Yes, it is," she answered, feeling almost as happy as Dante that they were about to get another case.

"I came here to get help," she began, clutching her purse in one hand, "you see, my sister's gone missing, and I—"

Dante slapped the magazine on the table in annoyance. "Listen," he paused suddenly, taking a good hard look at the innocent-looking woman standing stiff-as-a-board by the door: she had a beautiful face, so beautiful that he could have sworn he had never seen anyone as beautiful as her.

Her dark brown eyes looked as if they had sunk in from illness. Dark circles under them bore a strange resemblance to mascara. Her shoulder-length wavy black-hair fell in tight curls around her child-like oval face.

She looked innocent, but his Devil senses told him that she was a grown woman in her late twenties, or probably early thirties. He sniffed her strange, almost overpowering female scent that lingered in the room.

"Listen," he repeated, taking in the scent again, feeling his vision go blurry for just a tiny part of a second, "babe—today isn't a good day. And besides, this isn't exactly a police station, you should try there."

The weirdly beautiful woman took long, quick steps to the huge ugly table and fished a black pearl necklace from her purse. "I've already gone to the police," she began breathlessly, looking at him in desperation, "but I fear she might've been kidnapped by the killer. You've got to help me. I can pay." She placed the necklace on the table.

Dante, still keenly looking at the woman, lazily pulled his legs down from the table. He took the necklace in his hand and looked at it. It looked expensive.

"This is worth a fortune, and it's all I have," she said and put her shaking hand to her breast.

He returned his half-lusty, half-curious gaze to the woman, still looking at him pleadingly. He had to give in . . . even if it was just an ' _in the moment_ ' kind of a decision.

# # # # # #

Dante was livid with anger, or as livid as he could have been. Yesterday, he had taken up the girl on her offer for the case in exchange for the pearl necklace. And today, he was in some random house, waiting in a lavishly set living room for the owners to show up. What had he reduced himself to?

He skittered his hand through his ever-grey hair and moved his sharp eyes around the room. The room had heavy curtains hanging down from a rod not more than two inches below the ceiling line. They were dark red with even darker rose designs threaded on them.

They were drawn to let in the last light of the sun. The shadows of the trees in the garden were stretched to his boots on the expensive-looking rug. He moved his eyes just a little to look at the dusty boot marks—more like a trail of it—shining like a nasty brown surprise against the dark colour of the rug.

 _Damn, and I I'd wiped my shoes at the entrance at least a dozen times_ , he thought angrily, dropping his hand on the comfy sofa.

The cold steel of his trusty guns was eating into his back. It was due to the sudden drop in temperatures because of the recent rains. Trish urged, like a doting mom, that he should wrap himself in a woollen sweater or something before he gave her one of those ' _are you fucking kidding me?_ ' looks.

Did she really think he needed a couple of sweaters on his body to keep him all warm and fuzzy? He was a demon—all right, a half demon—but that still counted for something.

He had pure demon-blood running through his veins, and the way his steel sword had been growing over the past months, it was obvious that his mother's lingering traces were going away for good; but he did not know how to feel about it. He turned his head a little to look at the demon again, who was so reminiscent of his late mother.

 _Well, almost_ , he thought quickly after his gaze lingered down just a bit to where her huge and openly visible cleavage was.

He had to say it, even if it was going to end up in another argument between them.

"Can't you dress properly for a change?" he asked suddenly, looking at the stunned expression on her fair face.

Her perfectly red-painted lips pursed tightly and a lot of lines formed on her usually line-free forehead.

"Excuse me?" she asked and slipped one leg over the other.

Dante pulled Ebony from under the hem of his pants and started dangling it between his forefinger and thumb. "You heard me. Do you always have to look like an expensive prostitute?" he asked, watching how rapidly the colour rose in her cheeks and her contours contorted as if she had been greatly offended by the demon's honesty.

She brought her hands down on the sofa hard, her jaw jutting out in anger. "I don't look like a prostitute," she hissed, defending herself.

"I'm sorry?" he said sarcastically and pointed the long silvery barrel at his equally sarcastic face, "are you arguing with _me_ on this?" He raised his eyebrows high as if she did not know the obvious.

Her nostrils flared but she relaxed into the sofa. "Yes, of course, how wouldn't you know? You were brought up among prostitutes." The note of sarcasm in her voice was high and slightly condescending, but it was not enough to injure his over-inflated pride and ego.

"No, that was after my mother got chopped up. I had nowhere else to go—so I started living over and under the warm bosoms of plenty of women. So much love. But what is your excuse?" he asked, quirking his eyebrow and putting his right leg over the left. "Too much American Pop, or are my porn magazines your inspiration?"

Trish, slapping the sides of her thighs, turned her head to look at his face. "What's your problem? And honestly, why should it even bother you what I wear?"

"You know, before this waiting gets any more weird, I'm gonna to cut to the chase—you look like my Mom—it's weird!" Dante said, holding back the usual flow of sarcasm this time, "I don't want you looking like this, flashing your tits and ass in my face twenty-four seven. Get it, miss tight-prostitute-leather pants?"

She gasped loudly, her eyes widening that he did not just venture such a bad statement about her two-thousand and five-hundred-dollar genuine leather pants. "This is designer wear."

"Great—bet you bought one for Enzo, too. Now I'll have two hookers in my office—my mom and a fat and probably over fifty widower." He held up two fingers and then quickly slipped the gun back under his coat.

Trish's jaws looked slightly unhinged as she inhaled and exhaled noisily. "Shame on you, Dante," she said finally and composed herself a little when she heard footsteps on the other side of the double-door.

"Just put a paper bag on your head next time when you decide to shake your gifts in my office," he said and pulled his leg down. "At least then, I can have a shadow of a doubt that I'm looking at something other than my Mundas-cooked mom."

"It's the case, isn't it?" Trish began, smoothing out some wrinkles on her dark-brown sweater.

"No, I don't think so," Dante said curtly and bent his attention on a snake painting hanging on the wall in front of him about fifteen feet away. The heavy brush strokes of green and light green made the whole painting look green, even if there were other colours in it.

"I knew it," she paused, turning her blue eyes at him, "just do as I say and everything will be fine."

He gave a rough chuckle that came out as a sarcastic, heavy snort. "Yeah, and when they figure out that I'm not the guy I pretended to be on the phone, I'll be eating their fancy white concrete the next second."

"It's marble, Dante."

"Hell if I care! The point is that I'll have to act like a goody-goody scout boy and not smash that guard's face in when he throws us out," he said, pointing his thumb at the door. "And when it does happen, it'll, of course, be _all_ your fault."

"Right, because I'm the one who took on the case," she shot back, sensing a rise in Dante's anger. Maybe she had finally struck a nerve.

"Listen, you—" he began and raised a finger high when a man and a woman in their early sixties walked into the room.

The man stood straight in a dignified manner and the woman, who was probably his wife, clasped her hands together. "Sorry to have kept you waiting for so long," she said politely when both Dante and Trish scrambled to their feet.

"It's a'right," Dante replied quickly, looking at the sober-looking woman and the rueful expression on her face.

"I'm Margret and this is my husband, John," she introduced herself and her husband who quickly shook hands with Dante. "I was the one who talked with you on the phone, Mr. Dante."

"Yeah, I remember," Dante said politely.

"Please." Margret gestured Dante to resume the sofa again.

"You know why we called you here," she began, and her face strained with emotion. She was still reeling from the shock of her daughter's sudden brutal death.

He remained silent, looking at the mother's face and then the father's. He could not understand where his mind was wandering. There was a familiar smell in the air—that same alluring smell.

 _Has she been here?_ he asked himself, trying to concentrate through the haze of lust, wonder, and dreamy sensations again.

"Have you found anything?"

The voice reached Dante suddenly. He lifted his sharp greyish eyes, meeting the blue eyes of the woman. The face of that girl he had seen dumped next to the dumpster flashed before his eyes. It was a sudden, almost automatic thought, but he felt that she must have looked just like her daughter when she was her age.

"Nothing important, but," he paused and clenched his jaws, his head was getting a little fuzzy again, "do you know anything that might help us?"

Margret's features changed; she looked devastated now. She shook her head a little and held back a sob that choked her completely.

"I'm sorry," Dante said, took in a lungful of air, and began again, "we weren't able to find anything from the postmortem reports, but I'm sure you already know that."

"I—I'm . . . s-sorry," Margret barely managed between tiny, controlled sobs. She clamped her hand over her trembling lips and quickly walked out of the room.

John's eyes followed her as she walked through the door and then they returned back to Dante and Trish. "I apologize, but I can't be of much help. I was mostly away and . . . "

"I can understand," Dante said, getting to his feet. "I don't think your wife is in any position to tell me anything. I'll come by some other time."

"I'll greatly appreciate it," the old man said, shaking Dante's hand.

Dante and Trish walked out of the manor and sauntered down the wavy path to the gate. The chill in the air was still heavy. Dante's warm breath lingered in the air like white wisps of smoke.

He slipped his hands in his rugged brown jeans. His long black coat was hanging down a few inches above the ground. It was a bizarre fashion sense he had. He never even knew when and where he picked it up, but he always wanted to wear a coat over his limited wardrobe.

"That was weird," Trish said, walking slowly next to him.

"I don't think I would expect you to understand," Dante answered and stepped out of the large iron-gate that clanked shut behind them.

"What do you mean? And honestly, I was expecting you to at least question the father," she said, pulling up the zipper of her sweater.

"Great, he's waving—yes, you moron, bring the car around," he said loudly with a hint of annoyance in his voice at Enzo's energetic waves from across the street. "There are two things you refuse to understand. One, you are a demon—"

Trish raised both of her hands as if she was about to argue with him again and pursed her lips.

"No, Trish, let me finish," he said shaking his finger, "two, what do you expect from a businessman who was hardly ever home? And last, at least don't like a fashion-victim next time you decide to tag along? The way their eyebrows went up at your in-your-face tits, I was dreading they would throw us both straight out the door."

"That makes three, Dante." She rolled her eyes and stepped away from the pavement as Enzo parked the car a little too close to them.

"Run me over, why don't you?" He directed an angry glare at Enzo who sheepishly smiled and choked out something like ' _sorry_ ' from the front seat of the car. "Good thing you finally learnt to count. I'm still reeling from shock the last time you handled the money," Dante said and stepped into the car, followed by the outraged Trish.

The ride home was quiet and peaceful—much quieter than Dante had expected. Trish had decided to shut up about the whole nasty manor incident, and if she remained quiet, then Enzo had nothing worse to say. They both remained tight-lipped and silent.

He was happy by the time they made it back. Trish simply threw a couple of nasty swear words at him under her breath and stormed out of the office without even saying a lousy ' _thank you_ ' for the dinner he bought her along the way.

"This woman's so ungrateful," he said behind her, "no wonder dad kicked the bucket. Or who knows, he filed for divorce and died through alimony."

The night came slowly and silently. The hookers came out on the streets, as usual. The police had extended the curfew to two more hours after twelve a.m., so their business had finally begun to thrive after three long months of stand-still.

The flashy lights from love planet racked his walls from one corner to another. Music from the night club blasted into his room from the open window. He walked up to it and snapped it shut. Yes, it was business as usual in this part of town.

But Dante was tired today, so tired that he did not know why. Maybe it was because he had had one drink too many at the bar, or maybe because he knobbed that unknown stripper behind the changing room. He just did not care what the reason was. He just wanted to go to sleep.

So he dragged himself to his bed and fell onto it in a sprawl, and the next thing he knew, he was fast asleep, disturbed by a sound; a voice, a sweet warm voice of a woman. Its warmth snuck over his bare torso.

"Dante," she said somewhere from inside his room—maybe just a few feet away?

He opened his trembling eyes that refused to open from the burden of sleep that pushed them down. The haze cleared from over them, and he found himself looking at that woman who had urged him to take on this case. She was so beautiful . . . that was all that spun in his mind.

A shaft of moonlight travelling into his room struck her form. Her wild, twisted hair was in disarray upon her shoulders and bosom. By the glimpse of the moonlight, her figure became visible through the black silk. Her light brown nipples stood in the chill surrounding her. Her whole body shone like the lightest and finest of olives under that thin black layer of clothing. She looked away and then returned her dark eyes back to him again.

"Dante, will you?" she asked in a soft voice that sounded so distant, but he could see her clearly now, so very clearly.

Dante tried to get up but his body held him down. He felt the bed sink a little, and the next moment, he felt her weight on his body. She was sitting on his torso, one leg on either side. She slowly reached down and grabbed her dress and began to pull it up teasingly with a pretty smile on her lips.

His eyes followed the dress as she lifted it up inch by inch, revealing just a little more of her. The dress slipped up her smooth skin glowing in the darkness of the room, and he caught a glimpse of her round breasts and the hard nipples that awaited his touch. Lust had clasped him the moment he saw her, now it was narrowing down hard on him. Blood was rushing through his veins, and his heart was hammering in his chest. He could hear it pounding in his ears.

She slipped the gown off her body, revealing body completely that was just hazily visible under her dress only moments ago. Now, the only think that covered her was an underwear and the wavy hair that covered her full, soft breasts. She leant in and whispered something.

Her hot and deliciously sweet breath fanned out on his lips, but instead of the rise in lust alone, a strange kind of hunger rose in him, as well. His chest tightened, and his heart fluttered as if something was pressing it in from all sides.

Something tore itself out from inside him, and before he got a chance to even touch her, she vanished like dispersing smoke in front of him, leaving behind a strange light glow of her eyes. That glow lingered for a second and then it, too, disappeared like her. He shut his eyes from the searing pain tearing at his body.

Dante's eyes flew open. He was breathing hard and his whole body was aching. He quickly sat up and felt his hands clench from pain. He lifted his right hand and saw his long nails retract back into his skin that looked torn and leathery. A couple of scales had pierced out of his skin's pores, and he could see fine trickles of blood travel down his bare arm.

Slowly, drop by drop, blood plopped on his black jeans. He looked from his demonic transformation wounds to his nails that had completely travelled back into his skin. He wiped the sweat from his face and fisted some hair. He had never transformed in his sleep before.

"A . . . dream?" he whispered to himself and ran his eyes around the room. It was empty . . .

# # # # # #


	4. A Familiar Scent

**Chapter Four** : A Familiar Scent

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Last night was strange, even for Dante. Everything felt so surreal that it was beginning to increase his curiosity, if not nothing else. He had been with plenty of women, and as _God_ as his witness (even though he was no deist), he had to admit it, he was a bit taken aback by his own lust.

Sure, the woman was beautiful, but he had been with nice looking women before. Perhaps he was associating her with an apple he could only see but dare not sink his teeth into, or say anything like, ' _how about a nice_ cosy _time in my really dirty bed?_ '

That would be far too daring, even for him. Dante made money off customers, not knob them good. That was where he always drew that thin line, even if he did end up sleeping with one plus forty something of his customers once upon a too many times. He even indulged himself with a good two months affair, but it turned out quite messy.

The woman had a jealous husband who ended up getting beaten at his hands when he showed up at his office with ten thugs carrying the classic pitchforks. The farm boy never showed up again. It was totally not his fault. The woman just wanted him badly after he took care of that strange, gooey demonic worm grubbing around in her farm. Who was he to refuse her?

The next day, even the storms did not stop her from carrying all that outside mud into his clean office. She cried and cried, insulted his dead mother and threw her mud-covered slipper in his face—which he _easily_ dodged—that how insensitive and cruel he was for sending the love of her life with thirty-something broken bones straight to the hospital, along with his pudgy friends.

With her classic country accent, he honestly understood only half of that farm-girl baloney speech and the novelty of her verbose attacks, which mostly involved him fucking his dead mother by pulling her out of her grave. If only she knew how her high-pitched cries were giving him a raging hard-on . . . she always was the screaming type in bed. Unfortunately, he never saw her again . . .

 _Ah, good times_ , he thought, smiling to himself. Today was going to be another hellish day. Trish had dragged him to unknown squalid hovels that he did not know even existed only twenty blocks away from his own home stinking sweet home.

Dante stood outside on a filthy pavement of a narrow street where the air of neglect and filth from gutters pervaded. A couple of people came out of their miniature homes and tipped the garbage into the gutters. It was truly a sorry sight.

A gentle puff of bitterly cold air rippled the clothes hanging on wires, stretched between two poles in front of most houses. A woman, holding an infant in one hand, clipped a cloth on the line and checked several others. Perhaps it was laundry day.

The recent rains had stopped, but thick mist had begun to pile up. If it was not for his sharp devil eyes, he would not have been able to see beyond five feet. That was why the woman, who was only ten feet away from him, went about her business even if he was leaning against the wall of her house.

For the past few days, Dante was feeling a little tired. His body craved sleep. He did not know why but he just wanted to sleep more. Dante thought that a little more rest would fix his senses in the morning, but the wooziness was always back again the next day.

It was definitely due to lack of sleep and all that _hard_ detective work he had put into this damn case—all thanks to Trish. She and Enzo stayed a bit too often at his place these days, playing billiards, that he was thinking of throwing that table out for good. Dante was half-human, after all, and that had its downside.

The wind hissed past his ears, bringing with it a strange scent. He turned his eyes and sniffed the air; it was reminiscent of something or someone. His ears stood up and listened to the whispers and giggles of two little girls playing with dolls three blocks away. The sound of voices rose and fell on the undulating curls of mist broken by the blasts of icy wind.

It was gone . . .

"What was that?" he asked himself, adding his whisper to the weak currents of wind. It was playing a game, rushing past him and then slowing down to a mere whisper. And whenever it halted down to a crawl, the sounds of children filled his ears again, and then they would drown under the sounds of the wind and the sensuous smell of a siren.

Dante's head was getting jumbled again. The strange lust-filled scent . . . the whole air was redolent of it. He breathed it in, closing his eyes to drown himself in its allure. It rushed through his veins like fire. It felt good. He felt good. Whatever it was, it had been here.

His head snapped up to catch the first drop of rain. Pitter-patter and the ground was dotted with countless raindrops. It started drizzling again. He wrinkled his nose to pick up the smell again, but this time, it was gone for good.

Dante shoved his hands into his black jeans' pockets. Raindrops shone on his dark brown coat and his white hair glistened in the grey light of the mist. His eyes were downcast, looking at the tiny wet bird grubbing a worm out of the ground. It shook itself, fluffing out its tiny feathers, and swished off at the sounds of heels on the porch.

"Thank you," Trish said to the woman who closed the door quickly as the wind blasted in through it.

She made her way to Dante still standing where she left him an hour ago. Now, however, he did not look so happy.

Trish stopped by an abandoned child's cart moving slowly forward with the wind. She gave a vehement shake to the yellow hair she had finally decided to scrape back with a decent, but stylish black band. She really was such a desperate fashion victim. The chase for the modern high-fashion life had not been kind to her demonic sensibilities or what was left of them after the influence of the dreaded late-night television. God, his life was too hard . . .

"That took a while," she sighed out, scraping her boots on the rough cement.

Dante pushed his hair back and shook his wet hand. "Really?" he asked, looking at the house just in front of him. "Did you finally learn to bake cheery-pies?"

"It wasn't easy to get information. She thought I was some weirdo who wanted to snatch her kids away," she explained and looked at his sarcastic expression that seemed to have frozen on his face due to cold weather.

"I wonder why," Dante threw a quick reply, eyeing her from head to toe. She just refused to leave her so-called modern look back at that neighbourhood.

She stared back at him with a stern expression and tightened her face in annoyance. "Why do you always have to act like this, Dante? I think this is your case too."

He pushed himself off the wall scratched at countless places with chalk drawings and E plus L love-hearts. "I've been standing here, freezing my butt off, for the past hour," he said and gave a wide sarcastic wave of his hand. "This better be oh-so-worth-it—otherwise, you are off this case. This is something I know for sure." He prodded his finger into his own chest a little dramatically to make a point.

Trish, squinting through the mist in the air, settled her gaze on his tired grey eyes and the light circles under them. "The woman we're supposed to meet lives a couple of blocks away. Come on," she said and patted him on his back.

"Thank god—or I was hoping for the worst . . . like a guide to Enzo's super-mini condoms or his questionable pink thong collection," Dante said, walking beside Trish through the heavy fog on the road.

The wind blew his coat and hair back, trying to push him away but he held his ground, walking at a calm pace. In the wind's eye, he cocked and wriggled his ears. Two little girls were still playing outside their house . . . with dolls.

 _The kids are still outside?_ he thought, seeing not a soul outside in the merciless cold.

"Emma, that's mine," one girl said timidly.

"Forget it," the other little girl said in a wounded voice that Dante assumed was Emma. "You always get everything, Salome." The voice rang in his ears; it was bitter and full of something else, but it was hard for him to exactly make out the emotion behind the intensity.

Then it was silence again. The wind roared in his ears once more, picking up speed. The girls' voices got carried over the wind and came to his ears. One of them was crying.

"You're mean, Emma." Salome sobbed and sniffed, throwing something down that splashed into the water. "I'm going to tell mom," she said, and what followed were sounds of tiny steps sloshing through the layer of water on the broken ground.

Emma giggled a little, and after a heavy intake of breath, spoke again, "I hate you, and someday everything you have will be mine." She dabbled something in water and started humming a song. The rain had stopped.

Then the voices passed into silence. He cocked his ears and moved his eyes around. It was strange—he could see no one. Even the humming sound was gone. He took in the freezing air, lending an impatient ear to any sound, but it was silence and only wind.

"There's the house." Trish pointed at the last house standing at the edge of the road. "Have you been sleeping properly?" she asked, filling the gap of silence in the air.

Dante whiffed the air and sensed just a little of that scent. "I think so," he said after few moments. "Why?"

"Nothing, it's just," she paused, halting her steps in front of the house that looked far more decent than the rest of the neighbourhood, "what's with the circles under your eyes?"

He screwed his head around and swept his gaze over the empty streets. He turned his eyes again but saw nothing. _The girls . . . they should've been here_! he thought, getting a strange unsettling feeling. There was no water under the long shed, not even any toys. And that girl Emma, who was humming only a second ago, was not even there. It was as if she had just . . . _disappeared_.

"Dante?" Trish's voice stopped his coming thoughts. "Are you a'right?"

Dante returned his attention back to Trish. "Long hours of billiards at night can do this to any man. Even I've got a need for beauty sleep," he said and crossed the muddy grass for the dry-porch where a large brown mat lay at the foot of two steps.

She sighed and followed him. Tiny raindrops from the roof drummed on the thick shed overhead. She knocked on the door and wiped her black heels on the mat. She stood straight, waiting for someone to open the door. Next to her, Dante masked the ' _disappearance_ ' surprise by staring down at the dirty mat. It looked filthy, smeared all over with heavy mud from the small garden in front.

Small footsteps on the other side of the door drew near them. After a second, a little girl around twelve opened the door. She stuck her head out and hid the rest of herself behind the door.

"Can I help you?" she asked timidly, her eyes fixed on Dante's stoic face.

"We're here to see your mother," Trish explained and mellowed down her stern voice.

The girl snapped the door shut and ran off inside. Moments later, slightly heavy footsteps pounded on the other side. A lovely woman opened the door and looked at them both with a surprised look on her face.

"Yes?" she asked, wiping her hands on her apron.

"I'm Trish and this is Dante," Trish said and pointed her hand at Dante, "we are here—"

"You are Dante?" she almost exclaimed, cutting off Trish. "Please, come in." She gestured and opened the door wide enough for them to enter.

Trish, taken aback, cracked an awkward smile and walked behind Dante inside the house. The inside looked much wider and comfortable. A beautiful dark brown carpet covered the floor from wall to wall. A large four-seat sofa sat near the tall lamp that was turned on to brighten the room.

The girl, at the sight of Dante, quickly gathered her dolls and ran upstairs. Dante found her attitude odd and slightly funny. He plonked down on the sofa and grabbed a magazine from the front table.

"Please, make yourselves comfortable. I'll be right back," the woman said and left them alone to go to the kitchen.

Trish took a long intake of breath. The room was saturated with the smell of strawberry pies. She looked around the room, settling her gaze on the small pricey knick-knacks sitting on small tables and racks on the walls.

She turned her head and created a dissatisfied look on her face at Dante's lack of interest. "At least pretend to be interested," she said and sat down next to Dante who was riffling through the pages, looking quite bored.

He sighed behind the open magazine. "There's nothing much to get all excited about. By the way, the post-mortem reports are a dead-end. So why are we here again? I'm sure you didn't drag me here to meet the lovely mom of the house."

She crossed her legs and leant back into the sofa. "She wanted to give us her cousin's diary."

He closed the magazine and placed it back on the table. "That's all?" he asked, quirking his brow at the girl staring down at him from behind the wall. "I think that kid thinks I'm hideous looking—thanks to you."

"Don't worry, I won't interrupt your beauty sleep from tomorrow," Trish said, her voice quite harsh and sarcastic.

"You know, it's weird when the man of the house is the pretty one," Dante said, holding back his chuckles.

"Are you calling me ugly?" She asked, looking stunned and taken back.

"Not really, I just think you're not pretty enough," he teased and wore a wisp of a cheeky smile on his face.

She narrowed her angry eyes. "You're so narcissistic."

"Whatever," he threw a quick, ready-made answer at her.

Trish ground her teeth in anger. She hated it when females of all sizes made it obvious that Dante was the good looking one.

"Here it is," the woman said and appeared from the kitchen, holding a small black book in her hand. "I didn't give this to the police, hoping that you might find something useful in it." She handed the dairy to Dante.

"Did someone else live here before you," he asked suddenly, surprising Trish who looked at him curiously.

"Yes, there was a family," she broke off, thinking, "yes, I think they had two daughters. They left this home about fifteen years ago. Why do you ask?"

"No, it's nothing important," Dante said and stood up. "I'll let you know if I find anything."

The woman smiled and led them back to the door. A sudden outside chill filled the space as soon as they stepped out. The temperature had probably dropped below zero. The thin drizzle felt very cold on his face when he stepped out under the open sky.

He stopped suddenly and turned his eyes to the space between the two houses. It was dry and covered with a large shed. He walked to it, sensing a strange aroma creep into his nostrils.

"Dante?" Trish said from behind him.

Dante paused in his steps and looked down at the broken cement. A small doll's head was poking out of the ground. He knelt down and pulled it out. It was as if something exploded. A large wave of scents scattered into the air. He turned the tattered doll around in his hand. It looked very old. A child would never have been able to pull it out.

 _That . . . thing—it's been here, too?_ he gave a confused thought and tried hard to separate a myriad of familiar scents that saturated the air.

Trish stopped about five feet behind him, raising her hand above her head to shelter herself from the rain. "What is it?" she asked and tried to get a good look at the thing he held in his hand.

Dante shoved the doll into his pocket. "Nothing. Let's go," he said and took quick steps out of the garden. Trish, still unconvinced, did not press him further and followed . . .

# # # # # #


	5. Chills and Spills

**Chapter Five** : Chills and Spills

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As the evening chill rose into air, Dante felt a flush of frustration, anger, and maybe, a bit of lust, as well: the smell was driving him up the wall. The case was not heading anywhere no matter how he looked at it. The postmortem reports were not giving any clues, and the families were oblivious; he was just annoyed with the lack of any progress.

He lolled his head against the chair, crossing his legs. The diary that pretty mom had given him lay open in his lap. The corners of some of its pages were black with plops of ink. It gave off a strange smell of old paper and homemade ink. The writing was done with a sharp instrument; either it was a quill-feather or a wooden pen available from some of those old-fashioned shops up in the city.

Dante had gone through about half of the diary that covered some of the intimate details of the girl's love-life. She was also worried about the happiness of her friend, whom she referred to as S only. Her writing was neat and clear, but a lot of pages had a few names scribbled out: it was obvious she did not like what she had written.

 _People probably refuse to write their thoughts even on paper;_ this is what Dante imagined, closing his eyes. The girl had a very happy childhood; her parents took care of her; she had no enemies; then why . . . why was she murdered?

She was the first victim of these two uncanny murders and the ghastly disappearances. Same two puncture wounds, no blood in the body, and no sign of any marks. It was as if someone, or something knew them—but how?

It chafed Dante—it grated with him; he did not know what to believe. If it was not a demon, then was it a human killing those girls for . . . for excess blood for blood banks? It did not make any sense. A sharp chill slid over his face (the temperatures had dropped again).

Dante slowly opened his eyes; he was feeling fatigued again. He straightened his curved back and sighed. The pages trembled slightly in his lap. He picked up the black diary, and turned it around; it looked ordinary enough.

He stretched it open, creating an odd crackling noise. The book was probably old. He turned the pages again, running his eyes over the carefully written pages and squiggles of tiny details on the sides. The room was enveloped in silence, save for the sounds of papers and pages attached to the diary.

Trish had unfortunately decided to stay at his place again. She was slumped over the pool table, reading and rereading the files and other details related to the two victims and the disappeared girls. So far, ten girls had gone missing.

Dante moved his eyes around, catching sight of two strippers running towards _Love Planet_ across the street. The glass in his front door was beginning to get dirty. Dirt and splashes of recent rains had made it spotty and brownish.

He tipped his head back and looked at the old ceiling fan. Several cobwebs dangled from its rough edges; it was worn out by overuse and probably belonged in an antique shop; it always gave a strange grating sound at every twentieth turn . . . God, that sound annoyed him.

Dante took in a long intake of breath, and turned the pages. The diary continued with only two more entries. His eyes narrowed and his brow knitted. The girl was killed not long after the final entry.

 _Dear Dairy,_

 _Today, S came to my house. She sounded different somehow. I know she's been through a lot, but why does she worry so much? She's so beautiful. She'd easily find someone to replace her cheating husband._

 _I tried to console her, but she—she didn't care anymore. Something was so different about her. I wonder what's bothering her. Perhaps it is because of . . ._

And the rest was crossed out with heavy black scribbles. Dante traced the back of the page with his fingers and felt the bumps of the lines on the other side. They looked fresh. It was obvious that someone in the house did this. The lines were so heavy that they had left long tears in the page.

"Shit," Trish hissed and picked up the pages she had dropped clumsily.

"Aren't we getting so far ahead in this doomed investigation?" Dante teased, getting a growl out of Trish. "I'm so happy."

Trish pushed the papers into the files and staked them up in order. "Will you stop your childish behaviour? It's a demon and you know it," she said angrily, dropping the files on the side of the table.

"Are you deaf? I told you before, I sensed nothing from the corpse," Dante retorted, sensing his temper flare up again.

Trish swiveled around, hooking her thumbs in the hem of her brown jeans. "What do you suppose it is, then? A man storing all the blood for blood banks, which has been verified by the way."

"Verified?" Dante raised his eyebrows, looking quite skeptical.

"By verification, I mean that police have checked all the blood banks in the area, and their records are clean," Trish explained, looking at Dante's typical, stoic expression.

Dante's contours remained slightly tight. "That proves nothing. Maybe they supplied it else where."

"Don't be stupid—you know how this contradicts the postmortem reports." Trish took a few paces to the dirty table.

"I told you, I sensed nothing," Dante argued and closed the dairy between his hands.

Trish planted herself on the side of the table. "Who knows, maybe it's a hybrid, like yourself."

"Meaning?" Dante asked, looking back at Trish.

"You know what I mean."

"Actually, I don't. Hybrid or no hybrid, I should've sensed a demonic presence, which I didn't. This means this wasn't done by some demon, but a human—your regular scumbag," he said, clenching the dairy between his hands.

Trish sighed, rubbing her eyes. "You're still hell-bent on proving that everyone's wrong, aren't you? The reports have said that it isn't possible to lose blood this fast, and here you are again, holding onto your ridiculous theory."

"Excuse my hillbilly stupidity then, when you're the one with all the facts," Dante shot back, wearing a sarcastic smile.

"It isn't—" she stopped, sighing. "Look, whatever it is, it has probably masked itself somehow."

"Or," Dante said, pointing his finger at her, "it's some new high-tech contraption. The label probably reads, 'watch out babes, it sucks you dry!'"

Ignoring Dante's silly jokes at a time like this, Trish picked up the ringing phone. "Devil May Cry," she said into the black receiver. "Really? We'll be there in fifteen minutes."

"What? At least ask someone first!" Dante protested, raising both his hands.

Trish slammed the receiver onto the old phone. "A girl's dead body was just found about two kilometres away. Let's go," she said and hopped off the table.

"Great," Dante complained, swinging his legs off the table. "When will this end?"

"Don't worry, we'll solve this," Trish said, relaxing her face.

Dante pulled his black coat off the peg on the wall. "I wonder," he sighed out and put his coat on.

# # # # # #

Night had fallen when they reached the murder site. Ambulance horns blared, and puffs of wind blew in Dante's face. He pulled up the yellow police lines stretched across the entrance of another alleyway.

The narrow alley's floor was churned into mud by the water and police men going in and out. The pudgy detective Blake stood over the corpse, still and wide-eyed. Dante sloshed towards the fair body, left completely naked under rain.

He stopped few feet short of it, his eyes going wide aghast. The girl . . . her neck . . . it looked terrible: a large chunk of flesh had been torn from it, and the exposed flesh was of strange and sickly colour, brown against her deathly white body; whatever it was, it had eaten through her neck this time . . .

Dante stood tight lipped in the light drizzle. It was raining again today. His fuddled mind could not think of anything. His eyes, however, refused to leave the mauled neck. It was painful to watch.

The girl's contours were frozen in their place. Her face was eternally twisted in a painful expression. Her eyes, enveloped in raindrops, were looking out into the sky. The exposed flesh of her neck was like a huge, ugly looking blot against her lovely face.

A tatter of skin hung like a shriveled old leather from her neck. And despite the rain, two smears of dark red blood had dried out under her nose. Even the rain was not able to remove them. She probably bled from her nose because of the sudden assault.

Dante snapped his eyes shut suddenly. He had never seen a woman like this before, not since his mother died. He had to brave up to it this time: he was not a little boy cowering behind a wall anymore. With a resolute expression, he opened his eyes again. His grey eyes shone like the brightest of gems behind the thin film of wet.

"Well," Blake sighed out next to him, "it looks different this time." He clapped the sides of his over-sized hips. He looked a little squat today, standing next to the tall half-demon chasing his own thoughts.

A small line creased Dante's forehead, and he defiantly returned his gaze to the body. "Two bodies before it were completely untouched," Dante said under his breath, "then why this?"

Trish stood behind him—her ears pricked up at the sound of Dante's slow whispering. Her sharp eyes darted from corner to corner in search of any clues, but they found none. Her gaze lingered around the body for just a moment, before it wandered skyward.

As the light rain poured down on them, the subtle stench of blood crawled into his nostrils. Dante wrinkled his nose. A thin line of blood was snaking across the muddy, broken ground. A few times the sky rumbled, and a flicker of bluish light ran across the rock-hard body. She had been dead for a while.

Whatever had done it, tossed the body carelessly next to the dumpster again. One of her limbs was twisted painfully that her right foot was sharply bent inwards. _Was there a struggle_? a thought flashed in Dante's mind, but there was no clear way to confirm it.

There was nothing on the ground to suggest it. And suddenly, a realization shook him. He snapped his head up to look at a giant pile of black clouds hovering over the squalid neighbourhood: it was always raining whenever the murders occurred—always!

Lost in thought, he held out his hand and felt the quick rise in chilliness on his leather gloves. The frosty sensation quickly travelled into his skin and scurried up to his spine. He lowered his hand and eyes, focusing on possibilities but nothing came to mind.

"A third murder, and nothing to go by," Dante said aloud, as if talking to himself.

"You got me, young man," Blake said in reply and whipped out a large handkerchief from his pocket. It looked like a mini apron. "The post mortem reports are clean, but let's only hope we get something from this one."

Dante turned a little and shuffled his boots slightly on the thick mud. "Why does the killer always kill when it's raining?" Dante asked, getting a mildly shocked expression out of the old detective. "Have the police thought about this?"

Blake clumsily screwed the large cloth around his head, pressing his few frizzy hairs underneath it. "What makes you think there's a connection?" he asked and his smile went awry.

"I don't know," Dante confessed, pushing his hands into the pockets. "But don't you think it's a bit odd? The killer could've killed the girl a few days ago in clear weather, but he chose not to. Why?"

Blake looked back at him with a very puzzled look on his face. He rolled his eyes and curled his lips up a little as though he was racking his brains for an answer. "Rain couldn't have had any affect on the chemicals—if any were used. I don't see how this adds to the crime, but yes, you've got a point," Blake agreed, patting his face with his odd hanky.

"Maybe the police should look into this," Dante said in a throaty voice, clenching and unclenching his hands inside his pockets.

"If you ask me, it seems like this was done by a fucking demon!" Blake ventured, looking almost shocked by his own remark.

Dante remained silent. He twisted his lips a little, running his eyes over the body. It was spot free, not a single mark in sight. And just like before, a network of dead veins adorned the body here and there in a ghastly fashion. She was sucked dry.

"There isn't anything to see here," Dante said off-handedly, combing his overgrown hairs back. "Maybe something might come up in the postmortem report, but I doubt that."

"Getting cynical already?" Blake teased and flapped the soaking wet cloth in his hand.

"No," Dante paused, throwing a smile at him, "I like being a realist. The pathologists never figured out the possible culprit, so I doubt it'll happen now." He bent down and wiped some mud off his pants.

"Are you leaving?" Blake asked in a surprise when Dante turned around and took a few paces towards the street.

"Yeah." Dante paused in his steps. "There isn't much to see here, anyway. I'd appreciate it if you send all the post mortem details over to Trish," he said over his shoulder before he walked out of the alleyway.

"Don't mind him—he's just a little stressed," Trish said quickly, covering up for Dante's rude behaviour.

Blake waved his hand. "It's a'right. I guess it's too much for a young man his age. I'll send a copy as soon as I get the reports," he said, scratching his bald head covered with just a few dots of greyish hair.

Thinking that Blake did not have a clue about Dante's violent life, her face broke into a smile. "I'd appreciate it—thank you," she simpered and broke into a jog in Dante's wake.

"Kids these days," Blake sighed behind her, "taking up detective work because they think it's cool—if only they knew—" He squatted next to the body and began examining it, unaware of the pause in rain.

"What was that all about?" Trish asked, slowing down her walk.

Dante kept his head and eyes straight. "There was nothing to see or do there aside of staring at the naked body and mauled neck of some random chick," he said and cracked his stiff neck.

Trish stroked Dante's messy bed-hair. "You look really tired, you know?" she said, showing motherly compassion.

Dante stopped by a flower shop. "What are you doing? Stop acting like my mother—please," he said in a straight forward manner and looked up at the wide wooden-board propped up on two thick sticks over the small shack-like flower shop.

"I'm not—I'm just worried about you," she said honestly after a long pause.

"I think I can take care of myself," he retorted, his gaze set upon the holes in the wooden board. He dropped his eyes to his feet. A lot of mud from over the board had washed down over the street.

Dante's gaze was fixed on the street. It was filthy, covered with bird droppings, muddy shoe marks, and god knows what else. A few common city pigeons were walking around with fluffed out plumages; but the board was clean . . . all the dirt was washed away by the rain water.

 _The rain . . . could it be . . . could it really be a demon?_ Dante asked himself, lifting his chin.

"Dante?" Trish said, clapping on his shoulder. "I said, Enzo is here—let's go."

"What if—what if it really is done by a demon," Dante said slowly with long pregnant pauses. "Maybe it's got something to do with the rain. What if whatever is left behind gets washed away by the rain."

"What makes you—"

"Never mind," Dante cut her off, "let's just go to my office. This whole naked dead women thing is starting to freak me out."

"Really?" Trish said, cracking a mocking grin.

"Hey, I'm not a heartless bastard you believe me to be," came the quick reply from Dante as he stepped into the car, ignoring Enzo's cheery face.

# # # # # #

Night came as usual, together with the assortment of the usual sounds. Police sirens blared somewhere, and a couple of gun shots cracked at a distance. The common street gangs were becoming too common in this part of the neighbourhood.

Strippers laughed outside the Love Planet door, and a large black cat with ember coloured eyes sat purring on his small terrace. He did not bother shooing it away. It was rather cold outside, and it had been crying quite pitifully for a whole hour. It gracefully hopped down, meowed at Dante, and scrambled under a pile of newspapers. Only its furry tail was sticking out, which it happily swished from side to side.

Dante sat down on his hard-as-rock bed. His coat and shirt lay crumpled on his old chair. It was the second night of the full moon. A large shaft of light travelled into his room and slanted on his dressing table. His guns shimmered in the glimpse of the moonlight.

For now, the whole rainy business was left unresolved. Whoever or whatever was doing this, it needed rain. He would figure that out, but tomorrow. Right now, he needed some sleep. And maybe, just like _that_ night, he would see that nameless beauty again.

A formation of a small, lusty smile disturbed his collected features. It was a guilty pleasure for him, the kind no man would deny: the gift of fantasy! With this optimism, he laid on his back and closed his eyes.

Before long, sleep came chasing like a cat after a ball of yarn. It pawed him around, and finally, the room disappeared behind a wall of thick haze; but somewhere, water trickled into a puddle. Drip drip drip . . . it was beginning to annoy him.

Dante's eyes flew open, and suddenly, he found himself standing on the cold floor of a large abandoned room. His feet were bare, meeting the torn and rough rug stretched out at the centre of the room. Long dirty cloths draped the dusty furniture, and a large paining of a masked woman hung on the wall.

Most of its colours had disappeared, but he could still clearly make out the softness in the person's exposed neck and milk-white arms. It was the painting of a woman. Something on the floor slithered. He turned his head and found himself looking at countless snakes twisting on the floor.

They were so many of them . . . moving, hissing, and twisting on top of one another. It looked like a small, ruffled dark green lake. No, it was a mating ball! The intensity of his demon gaze rent through the film of night haze and found a large female snake under all that pile.

The large snake twisted her head at him, its long forked-tongue flickering at the large mouth. She slithered forward, moving the entire snake pile on top with her. Dante could have sworn its head was much larger than his entire torso. It had strange amber coloured eyes that sparkled in the dark. An orange-like glow floated around its dark, scaly head.

Suddenly, in a fit of convulsions, it thrashed its head violently and foamed at the mouth. The snakes on top stirred a bit, and half of them fell off its serpentine body. It went still, the final glow in its eyes disappearing like smouldering embers.

Dante narrowed his eyes, looking in surprise at the snake's mouth. Something inside it was struggling to get out. Suddenly, an arm gutted out of the mouth and then another. The slime covered arms and hands remained still for a second. They were beautiful and soft—it was a woman.

The woman stretched out her arms and splayed her fingers on the dusty ground, and with one final struggle, she pulled her head out of the serpent's slightly stretched mouth. All Dante could see was a thatch of black hair. The woman continued to pull herself out. Her pliant body was slipping out like silk being pulled out from a vase.

When the last of her foot was out, she huddled up beside the snake's mouth. Slowly, she raised herself to her shaky feet. She stood still under the shower of moonlight coming in from a large hole in the roof.

Then she tilted her head back and bathed in the silver light. Little by little, the slime slipped down her body and left her bare. Her wet hair dried out as light curls on her shoulders. Her skin glowed like the finest and lightest of olives.

She opened her closed eyes and raised her head to face Dante, who was still staring at her with hunger and amazement. It was her—it was that woman again! She stood stark naked, her amber eyes staring back at his light grey ones.

In the moonlight, for the first time, he saw her very clearly. Her innocent face was expressionless with just a hint of playful smile on her lips. Her uncombed hair was twisted like black snakes on her shoulders.

His gaze travelled down to where her round and soft breasts were. Light brown areolas adorned them together with tight nipples. A little slime affected the smooth contours of her waist. A thin trail of soft black hair travelled down from her naval to the inviting black curls between her soft legs.

"Dante," she cooed, sending ripples of excitement straight to his loins.

He could not find any words to speak. She was so damn beautiful—the rise in lust was giving him one hell of a daze.

She took one step and stood dangerously close to him, the nipples on her soft breasts touching his bare chest. She leant her head up and brushed her lips on his. Dante's hands automatically pulled her close, removing the very small distance between their bodies.

Her body, pressing against his, fired up his lust tenfold. His hands travelled up her back, feeling the womanly softness of her skin. She ran her hands through his hair and gently touched his sharp features.

Dante sniffed the scent of her hand and brushed her palm with his lips. Then he dipped his head and began kissing her nape. It felt amazing. He did not care what _this_ was . . . to him, it felt so amazing and real!

The beautiful woman sighed in his ear, and then, without warning, dug her teeth into his neck. It felt painful—he could feel her long animal-like teeth pushing into his skin. A thin stream of blood travelled down his nape. He jerked his head away and opened his eyes.

The blinding sunlight inside his room greeted him. A sharp pain was still stinging his neck. Instinctively, he touched the area where it hurt, but felt nothing.

"Great." Dante groaned at the back of his throat. "Just when I was getting to the good stuff," he complained and got out of his bed, feeling quite attached to the strange, but surreal dream . . .

# # # # # #


	6. No Rains, No Dreams

**Chapter Six** : No Rains, No Dreams

# # # # # #

Between the rumbling noises and flashes of lightning, the large female snake twisted and turned on the floor. A sliver light ran across its shimmering green scales. They looked glib, hard as diamond.

It wrapped its body around another and began suffocating the life out of it. Slowly, little by little, it tightened its grip, its long teeth digging into the neck of the other serpent. Crack . . . and it snapped its neck in two.

A dribble of blood fell from the gaping mouth of the male serpent. Its crystal-like eyes shone like two carved out grey diamonds. Its head lolled down, hanging lifelessly by a large vein twisted around the snapped remains of its bones.

A large spurt of blood gushed out of its vein and splashed on Dante's frozen face. He watched as the larger female unhinged its jaw and ate the dead male serpent. She moved her mouth from side to side, swallowing it down her throat. And before Dante could blink, it was gone. She had eaten all of it.

The blood on Dante's face trickled down his neck, dripping on the floor below. Snakes at his feet slithered and twisted around. He did not know what was going on. The scent of her was in the air. Slowly, warm blood rushed through his veins, and he felt a sudden strong pang of arousal.

A deep, throaty sigh escaped his lips that awaited the touch of hers. No matter how hard he tried, he could not control his rising arousal. The Serpent turned her head at him, lowering her head on her curled body.

She just sat there, looking at him intensely. It did not move, nor did it hiss. It just flicked its tongue from time to time, its eyes unblinking fires of yellow. Dante stared back into its eyes that looked lifeless, and yet, they were so alive with life.

Laughter resonated in the room, and from between the large tangles of its body, crept out that beautiful woman he wildly lusted for, almost day and night. A serpent, lusty smile graced her face. Her hands squeezed the soft breasts on her smooth chest.

She laughed, rising the heat and lust in his body to an unbearable level. His pants tightened, and his nipples stood up under the assault of his own body. He just wanted to feel her badly.

"Why don't you . . . touch me?" she asked and snaked her hands down between her legs.

Almost instinctively, he took one step, reducing the distance between him and his object of desire. The serpent moved her head, squeezing it between her thighs, parting them completely.

The woman bit her lower lip and titled her head back. She let out a loud moan, running her hand over the body of a smaller snake that moved between her nether lips. Her hands ghosted over her breasts he so wanted to taste. She crossed her legs, arching her back invitingly. Her brown eyes furiously locked onto him.

Riveted by the woman's open invitation, he stepped forward, but pulled his feet back just as quickly. His eyes widened at the sight of her as she scratched herself, bleeding from the long gashes left by her rough, thick nails.

Scales shone from under her skin, and her eyes turned amber. Her neck cracked and twisted around painfully, gutting out from between her shoulders. Her torn, bleeding arms fell on the ground, and her scaly legs joined together. She looked just like a snake!

"Dante," she called out hoarsely, opening her mouth wide, tearing her luscious lips from ear to ear.

Her tongue bled, cut from the tip like a fork. Long teeth protruded out of her mouth, and her curly hair fell down on her writhing body. Battered and bloody, she lunged at Dante, her mouth wide-open, ready to devour him.

Dante tumbled down, and with the jerk of his head, he opened his eyes. The ceiling fan spun around slowly. With hazy eyes, he looked at the floor. His magazine had fallen off his lap.

"Finally, you're awake," a female voice said from across the room, diverting his attention. "How many times do I have to tell you not to sleep on the chair? You'll hurt your back."

Dante groaned, pulling his legs off the table adorned with the clutter of junk. "What do you want? Shouldn't you be doing that wild goose-chase?" he said and picked up the magazine.

Trish unfolded her arms. "No, I can't do it without you. And what were you moaning about? Naughty dreams?" Trish teased, smiling.

"Whatever goes on in my head is none of your business," Dante said, slapping the dusty magazine on the table.

"No, I don't care, but one of your moans was probably heard down the street," Trish said with a laugh.

Dante rolled his eyes. His neck twinged with slight pain. It felt itchy. He touched his neck and scratched it a little.

"What's wrong? You look really tired," Trish said, looking concerned.

Dante stood up and pushed the is heavy office chair back (it was far less comfortable than it looked). "I'm fine. Just tell me where we need to go, so I can spend the rest of my day in peace."

"One of the families contacted. We need to talk to them," Trish explained, her gaze bent on Dante's weary face. He looked strangely pale.

"Fine, but I'm not waiting outside this time," Dante said, pulling his black coat off the peg on the wall.

Trish smiled and walked out of the office with him. The afternoon air was warm today and sun was shining high, bursting through the weak clouds in the sky. The weather was pleasant, and the streets were teeming with people; but Dante's mind was elsewhere . . . he needed to find that woman. And if she was not going to come to him, then he would go to her. One way or the other, this chapter had end.

# # # # # #

Dante was back on the filthy streets of where he lived, idling away the precious days of his life, chasing after some ghost demon that refused to get caught. Trish's operation barmy was bound to blow up hard in their smug mugs sooner or later, and boy did he find comfort in the thought of ' _rubbing it in her face_ ' when it happened.

He only wished it was sooner . . .

The air in the chicken hole was redolent with many odors that were not exactly pleasant. A whiff of putrid smell from an open-gutter outside was flowing into the room (who left the goddamn window open?). It was almost unbearable to sit here and experience the toils of breathing.

A giant cage sat just next to Dante. Inside was a hideous looking parakeet with more than half of its feathers gone. From time to time, it twisted its neck, cocked its spindly left leg, and called him ' _mother fucker_ '. The kid sitting on the floor snickered into his hands; he was playing on the rug spangled with some shiny toys. Dante was dead sure he had taught it to his bird.

"Josh, where's your mom?" Trish asked, sweaty and red in the face. She looked like a boiled tomato clad in slutty painted-on jeans hanging dangerously low around her hips.

The kid craned his head and almost innocently gathered his broken toys, which Dante thought looked like trash. "She went next door. She'll be back any minute," he said timidly, clutching an ugly bear to his chest—it had a Mr. Huggles tag on its deformed chest.

"I hope she makes it before I kill this bird," Dante said, wiping sweat off his face.

Josh's eyes' widened with fear and he zipped out of the room, throwing his ruined on the floor. One of his button-eye popped out of its eye socket and rolled under the table.

"Dante!" Trish gasped in a sharp disapproving voice.

"What?" he said, turning his head at her. "I doubt she'll throw us out for hurting little Josh's super little feelings."

"What the hell is wrong with you? Can't you be serious for a change?" Trish said, looking stern.

Dante crossed his legs. "Look, that kid is evil, and so is this naked bird," he said with certainty, pointing his finger at the bird nipping at the cage's door.

Trish lolled against the wall, looking outside the half-open window covered thickly with dust. Lifting her eyes, she saw a swathe of clouds rolling in over the city. It was going to rain soon.

"Mother Fucker," the bird squawked, parroting the same words senselessly.

A laugh slipped past Trish's painted lips. "Just ignore it," she said, holding back her laugh.

Dante snapped his head at the bird, and his eyes took-on a raging red glow. The bird trembled and fell down from the little swing with its legs up. Letting out a feeble croak, it went completely still with its tiny tongue hanging out.

"Finally, some peace." Dante flicked at his coat and slumped back into the sofa.

"You killed the bird?" Trish asked in surprise, looking at Dante's indifferent face.

Dante turned his head away, moving his left leg impatiently.

"Gee, aren't we cranky today," Trish muttered, lifting her gaze skyward.

"I heard that," Dante sighed out after a long and uncomfortable pause.

Trish rolled her blue eyes, rimmed with smoky reddish eye makeup. "I'm sure you did, Dante," she said, screwing her head around a little to look at Dante looking serious and quite ill today.

His eyes were fixed on the sofa in front. It was obvious that he was deep in thought. Her gaze missed neither the tightness of his features, nor the dark circles surrounding his once clear sharp eyes. They looked dull today, almost drained of energy. This odd state of his was beginning to worry her.

 _Maybe Dante's not getting enough sleep?_ Almost unconsciously, Trish shook her head a little; this was absurd. Dante had bested Mundus, and he was the only living son of the legendary dark knight who knew no advisory . . . _who or what is doing this to him?_

That thought puzzled her. No one came to the office save that unnamed woman and the first victim's father, but that time, Dante was not in office. If that woman was a demon, then she could have sensed something—heck, Dante would have been on to her like a hawk.

The fair skin on her forehead folded and fine worry lines formed on lighter ones. Her eyes were still bent on Dante's tired face, but then her gaze went just a little lower where his parched lips were. They were cracked at several places. It looked as if they had not met a drop of water in over a week.

She shifted just a little, tapping her long heel on the patched part of the rug torn at the edges. A dull sound filled the room, and a little dust rose into the air as she put her heel down on the rug.

Dante raised his knuckles, resting his chin lightly on them. His neck was beginning to itch a little, and sporadically, a dull pain rose up to his skin. It felt like the prick of a needle. Instinctively, he would reach up to his nape to feel it, but the skin there was smooth.

He had officially become besotted by that woman's dreamy charms. He probably had never felt this consumed by lust before . . . the desire to sleep, to rest, to feel warmth . . . that woman was the cause. _She has to be_ , he thought, clenching his fists a little.

This strange tiredness he felt daily only intensified his lust and the need to constantly sleep. His gaze darted a little to the left where a tall table stood on three extremely thin legs. A few drops of sweat dripped from his bangs. He closed his eyes, trying to whiff the scent of that woman.

With a long heavy sigh, Dante opened them; his grey eyes gave a pearly shone in a cloud of dust hanging in the room. She was not near. A wave of thoughts washed over him. He had never truly picked up how she smelt. There was a strange, wild allure to her.

She was not very sexual looking. Only god knew her babyish face screamed dangerously-close-to-jail-bait; but it was her raw, real beauty that heated his blood almost instantly. Her soft features swayed before his eyes like a hazy, ghostly silhouette, boiling his male desires. He really wanted to fulfill them without any condition.

His senses relished a lingering trace of her, and just like a fine red wine topping up the glass, it invited his thirsty lips. His eyes began to flutter, his heart pounding like a raging ocean under his chest.

"Dante," a whisper wafted to him from somewhere far. It touched him, feeling feathery on his lips.

A thick film of haze dropped over his eyes. Dante parted his lips a little to breathe, wanting to slip his tongue past her soft, full lips. He bit down hard on his lower lip, sensing a sharp pain scurry through his face.

"I . . . " he breathed out dreamily and felt himself being pulled into deep sleep.

Trish turned her head at his soft whispering. Her eyes widened: Dante was falling asleep with his head thrown back on the sofa. His face was covered with sweat that glistened in the sickly yellow light of the bulb.

Trish took quick steps to the sofa and flopped down on it. She stared at him for a moment. His face was calm, serene, clouded by a strange lustful expression flickering across his face. His lashes trembled over his eyes. A small line of blood slowly travelled down his lower lip.

He looked . . . drugged, lost somewhere.

Trish clamped down on his shoulder and shook him vehemently. "Dante—Dante!" she said in a high voice, watching him slowly return to being himself.

Dante stared at her with a curious expression, straightening himself on the sofa. Trish looked from the deep cut on his lip closing up fast to the line already drying out on his chin.

"Are you . . . " she paused, wiping away the blood from his chin, "all right, Dante?"

Dante looked back at her and for a few moments admired the few portions on her face, untouched by the horrid-looking makeup, that reminded him of his mother. "That eye makeup makes you look really ugly," he said offhandedly, directing his gaze elsewhere.

"Thanks, Dante," she said sarcastically, looking quite annoyed now. "Try to stay awake, okay."

Dante made a rude salute gesture and let out a loud sailor-whistle. He looked normal again as if suddenly freed of a heavy burden on his body. The sensation clasping him had left quickly. Trish's eyes searched for something, but that strange emotion had flown from his face . . . he still looked tired, but only just.

"A little rest will do you good," Trish said, almost out of her own thoughts.

Dante took in a deep sigh. "Sleep—I hardly know what it feels like," he said in a sincere tone, masking his usual morning crankiness quite a bit.

Trish's eyes skittered down his unruly hair, hanging around his face like strings, that had grown well past his jaw-line. His bangs skimmed his fair face, just barely touching it. His sharp, cat-like grey eyes were downcast, now gleaming at the first burst of glaring sunlight travelling inward through the window.

For the first time, the woman in her realized how beautiful he was for a man. It was a sudden, wild thought, quickly overwhelmed by her nurturing desires. Perhaps she was created to shelter him. Somehow, a small part of woman in her deeply resented that thought.

Feeling a little detached, she turned her head a little to look at the sky; the clouds had rolled out. "I don't think it's going to rain today," she said, putting her hand on Dante's shoulder.

"It should have," Dante complained, blinking his eyes covered with beads of sweat. "The heat in this room is going to boil me alive."

"I don't think it'll happen anytime soon," Trish said quickly and got to her feet.

Dante craned his neck to look up at Trish who was a little taller than him, standing on the dangerous throat-cutting stilettos. "Sometimes, your lack of sympathy scares me." He flicked at the thin bars of the steel cage that had that infernal bird already rotting in heat.

"Josh, be careful," came a simpering voice from the kitchen, followed by countless pounds on the rug.

A giant tornado of dust blew into the room and along with it came Josh, scrambling his feet and flailing his arms; Dante wrinkled his nose a little; the kid looked mentally challenged.

"Mr. Chum Chums!" the kid screamed happily near Dante's ear. He felt as if his eardrum blew into his head.

"Sorry, I didn't know you were coming," the pretty looking woman said, looking at Trish from across the room.

Dante flicked Trish an angry glance. The heat had been roasting him for a whole hour, and this was a surprise visit? She had made a habit out of irritating him on daily basis. "No worries," he sighed, twisting his lips into a smile at the sight of a mild blush glowing on the apple of her cheeks.

Nervously, she gestured Trish to take a seat. "I got all the pictures of the missing girls you sent me," she began rather coyly, trying to hide the full-on rosiness speckled on her face, "I've seen one of the girls."

"You have?" Trish suddenly spoke out. "When?"

"About two days ago," she explained and opened a small dairy in her hand.

Josh rattled the cage, shaking it madly. "Mom, something's wrong with Mr. Chum Chums," he said, teary-eyed.

"Josh, be quiet," she warned, brining her attention back to Dante whose face had gone stiff. "This is the woman I saw." She pulled out a photograph from inside the pages.

Dante took it from her hand. His eyes stretched out a little. _What the hell?_ he thought, drinking in the details of a faded picture of a girl. This was not the first time he had seen this photograph.

"Where did you see her?" Dante asked in a low voice, his eyes not leaving the hazel, amber-like eyes looking back at him from the dirty-looking picture.

She closed the small diary and pushed in a tiny button on top, locking it securely. "I went about twenty blocks away to buy some groceries—that's when I saw her running into the alley. Her clothes were very dirty. She looked diseased—and, you know, like those homeless people?" she finished, looking at Dante and Trish sitting opposite her.

Trish took the picture from Dante's hand. "It's that woman's sister. Did she even give us her name?" she asked, directing her gaze at Dante.

Dante didn't say anything; a wave of confusion crashed over him. _That woman . . . is she lying? No, she couldn't be. Why would she?_

"We can get her name from the police station. Her sister never left any address with us," he said, getting to his feet.

Trish, quite perplexed by Dante's quietness, stood up as well, clutching the photograph in her hand. "Thank you for your help. If you can remember anything else, just let me know," Trish said and slipped the picture into her pocket.

"Mr. Chum Chums's dead," Josh sobbed, rubbing his eyes and a thick line of mucus sliding down his nostrils. "You killed him, you mofo!" He pointed his finger at Dante and began kicking at his leg.

"Josh!" His mother pulled him back, holding his out-of-control leg. "Sorry about that," she apologized, squatting down to take her raging son in a tight clasp.

Dante lazily looked down at Josh. "Just buy a new one, kid—you can name her Miss. Chun Chuns this time," he said, winking at Josh's pretty mother who leant her head down shyly.

Trish made an odd face and dragged the interested looking Dante out of the house. The street was teeming with the down-trodden and desolate people, even the better-off ones. In this part of town, this was a common sight.

# # # # # # #

For the next few days, the sun brought unbearable heat every morning. The clouds and rains were nowhere in sight. Building humidity and frustration prevailed in Dante's office.

Trish had already forwarded the picture to Detective Blake in hopes of getting any information on the girl and her notoriously alluring sister, who had decided to pull a disappearing act; he had not seen her in office since that one time. No phone call, no nothing.

Her attitude was puzzling. Maybe she was not as innocence as she pretended to be. Or maybe it was just his other head talking that fired up even at the slight thought of wild and twisted black hair.

Dante cleared his dry throat and leant back into that old, worn-out sofa lying at the corner of his office. He rested his hand on his thigh and drank chilled soda, cooling his burning and prickly throat.

A thrilling chill travelled down Dante's neck, and a light pink colour of life filled his lips. He felt energized, having slept fully for a couple of days. A smile came to his lips. _I haven't seen her for a while in my dreams._ This thought swirled a little desire in him; but for the moment, he did not care.

It was all smiles as he cooled his face in the cold wind the building storm brought through the window for him . . .

 **# # # # # #**


	7. Masked Queen Manor

**Chapter Seven** : Masked Queen Manor

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A howl rose into the air and clove through it. Then there was a flurry of bullet noises. Bang bang bang . . . they ricocheted off the old stones and some got stuck in numerous cracks that riddled the walls.

Bullet shells flew out of the twin guns, shining in the light of the full moon on this cold night. They rained down on the stone pathway.

Then the noises stopped. Silence came back save for the click of the trigger and a waft of stale odor rising up into the air from the fizzing corpse of a demon: its limbs were twisted around and that broken jaw was filled with bullets. It lay dead, bleeding from innumerable holes in its body.

Quietly, the half-demon reloaded, his tall shadow standing over the carcass. Cool wafts blew out the antique shop's candles set in a dribble of wax, waning and melting away quietly. The marble underneath them was so old and dirty.

The antique shop's sign swung back and forth, hanging down from two rusty chains. A bulb flickered overhead, throwing Dante's shadow on the wall a few feet away. Then two shadows grew and waxed as he drew near the last burning candle.

He was not alone . . .

"Dante," the shadow cooed and stepped into the white light. A faint silver gleam flickered across its shiny scales that shimmered like a cheap glitter spray around the perky breasts.

Dante held out his hand and spread his long fingers wide. His sword flew into his hand, shining like the finest of blades. He curled his fingers around the hilt and twirled it in his hand.

"Are you hungry?" the second silhouette asked, skimming its hand over its body. Its fingers looked like sharp metal blades, sparkling in the clasp of moonlight.

"It depends on what you have to offer." Dante winked, playing with his gun.

The two figures were out in the open, covered in fine scales barely visible even in the solid moonlight. They laughed, standing shoulder to shoulder, looking at Dante from a safe distance. They looked just like women: succubae!

"We can offer plenty," one of the demons said and suggestively licked her long nails covered in dried blood.

"Really? I hope it's a lot more than those bastards you ate all up," he said with a playful smile, keeping his eyes on the demons.

One of them snarled, her face twisting in rage. The other walked to Dante from the left, hoping to corner him.

"Ladies, ladies, don't crowd me—you can both have a turn." He firmed his hold on the cold hilt.

The demon from the left bared her long teeth and stretched her silvery arm. It took the shape of a sharp sword's edge. And before Dante could even blink, she lunged at him with her mouth open and claws bared.

He barely had enough time to put his sword up for defense. Her thick, sharp, knife-like arm glanced against his sword before he swung up into the air to avoid the other demon behind him.

She took a long, lightning-fast swipe at him. Her nails swished past his eyes, slicing off three of his long bangs. He swung his sword wide and landed in a wide yard that was a scene of human shambles.

Dante's feet landed into a puddle of blood filled with their floating remains: half-eaten arms, torn heads, and a couple of torsos punched in with something sharp. The foul odour was making him dizzy. His vision blurred for a second before the demons came into his line-of-sight again.

They laughed, brushing their lips with the sharp edges of their nails. He wiped his forehead on his sleeve. They were much quicker than they looked. _No wonder they cut those men down in short order_ , he thought and stood upright.

A few lines of worry creased his beaded forehead before a naughty smile returned to his face. He licked his lips, eyes twinkling, and raised his sword, inviting the other two for a bloody fight.

The demons hissed and jumped forward, landing a few feet away from him. They split up and ran in opposite directions. Dante's eyes tried to follow them, but they were so fast, like grey blurs running over the walls.

They attacked again. He sparred with the one in front, trying to dodge the jaws and nails of the other one behind him. It was getting harder and harder. The demon behind him had torn off more than half of his left sleeve. A few tatters of his once really expensive coat were hanging on the threads for their dear life.

But she had yet to injure him. Dante had to do something and fast before he ended up in the puddle like the rest. They attacked together again, but this time, he was ready. He thrust his sword forward, stopping the arm of the woman in front and grabbed the second one by the throat.

He squeezed hard and heard a loud crack. The demon struggled and scratched his arm. It bled profusely, trickling blood down next to his feet. He rammed her into the wall and slashed the other's arm clean off its body.

There was a slash and a spurt of blood . . . it happened so fast. Dante found himself flat on his back on the muddy ground. His sword had flown out of his hand. He clenched his hands and twisted his arm and tried to reach for his back to get his other gun out, but it was impossible!

There were three of them now, nipping at his neck and tearing his coat to pieces. He felt so weak, unable to fend them off as they sank their teeth wherever they found skin. His blood pooled on the ground as his body desperately tried to heal itself over and over again against the deadly assaults of dagger-like teeth.

Their faces began to sway before his eyes like hazy shadows; and when that last drop of human strength left him, a powerful surge of power rushed through his veins. Electrifying demonic power filled his battered body, and it changed rapidly.

Long canine teeth jutted out of Dante's mouth and thick horns grew out of his head like tall towers, twisting like curls at the ends. His back itched as blood boiled underneath his skin, and his muscles grew harder and wider.

Two leathery wings tore out of his back. He moved his arm and grabbed the throat of one of them. Its neck cracked like a twig in his grasp. A shower of blood exploded out of its throat as its lower part thudded to the ground, still quivering with a bit of life in it.

The other two women coiled back, hissing at a much more powerful opponent. Dante jumped forward, stretching out his hand for his father's keepsake. It rushed to his hand, whirling like a mad dervish.

He pinned one of them to the wall and cut her body in half. It shrieked in pain, flailing its arms about wildly to try and free itself. It died an agonizing death. Half of its innards spilt out of the cut-open body.

The last one ran quickly away from him. It could not even make it to the gate when he grabbed her by the arms. He pulled them apart, ripping its whole body in two. A large splatter of blood landed on him. He released his grip on the two torn halves and stood over them for a while, looking at the carnage he created in mere five seconds.

The power suddenly left him. He felt dizzy again and sank down to his knees, curling his fingers. His hands were soggy with blood and mud from the grass. He lifted his eyes and looked at the corpse lying just next to him. He had torn her in two.

He sat there quietly for a while, listening to the hiss of the wind. The corpses smouldered slowly, reeking of decay. Within moments, they were charred beyond recognition. As the wind blew over them, they began to scatter like ashes. The only things left there now were the pieces of slaughtered men.

Dante was still lost in thought, thinking about his weak humanity and relishing the first spell of rain in weeks as it poured down upon him. The blood gathered on the ground and disappeared down the drains and into the grass. For him, it was a job well-done.

He bent his head down, looking at his bloody hands. Rain washed away the stains quickly. Tiny cuts here and there disappeared fast, leaving nothing behind except the lines of his fate.

A loud thunder noise tore through the gentle rhythm of rain, and not a moment later, another demon's body met the wet ground. It was burnt to death. Trish landed gracefully on her feet just next to it. She clenched her fingers and extinguished the building charge.

Dante slowly got to his feet; his legs were shaking from fatigue and weakness. She looked at him, her expression changing to a much more surprised and concerned look; but he ignored her as he walked slowly to his gun lying in the mud.

"Dante, what happened?" she asked, looking quite alarmed.

"They kicked my ass, what else," he answered back and pulled the silver barrel out of thick mud. "But I guess I showed them."

She took quick steps to Dante and grabbed him by the shoulders. "Your shirt—" she stopped and examined the tatters the demons had left behind.

"Yes, it is gone," he said the obvious, shaking the gun to let out rainwater, and a guy's broken finger: he was probably there somewhere in the puddle with the rest.

She tore the remaining shirt off. "Was it _really_ necessary?"

"Yeah, pretty much," he said quickly and slipped the gun back into the holster.

"You shouldn't have taken this case when we haven't even solved the one—what are you doing?" she asked, annoyed.

Dante was looking down at his naked chest. A few irregularly torn strips hung just above his nipples. "Now I look like a hooker," he said and pulled an irritated face.

"They were transformed succubae—what did you expect?" Trish said and watched him swiftly pull his coat's zip up.

"Well, now that that's _all_ done and behind us," he exclaimed, looking happy like a school kid on summer break, "let's go home." He started for the gate when she took him by the arm and marched to the back-alley.

"Are you mad, woman?" he protested, walking behind Trish through the tight alleyway. "I gotta eat or I'll drop dead—I'm telling you!"

"The manor isn't far from here. I'm sure you'll make it," she said and squeezed his arm tightly.

He sighed and quietly walked beside her. She was not going to let up, and this case had already become a huge pain in his arse.

After ten minutes of walking through a broken down, once-decent small village, they _finally_ reached the front of a giant manor looming behind the rusty gate.

"This is it," she said to herself, letting go of his arm.

"I can't feel my arm," he muttered and looked around to find nothing but thick fog and a garden churned to mud. "This looks like something out of a B-grade horror movie, minus the boobs."

"Will you stop complaining? I helped you, didn't I? Now it's time to get serious again—Dante, I'm warning you, or I swear to—" she warned in a deep and sinister voice; her eyes narrowed on Dante's back, who had turned around and was about to walk off back home.

"What—God? You don't believe in God! Fine . . . but this better be worth it," he said, biting back dozens of swear words to curse Mother Nature. He pushed the gate, but it would not budge. A large padlock clanked against the thick iron bars there.

He pulled it apart with ease and kicked open the gate. It let out an unpleasant sound and exuded a powerful rusty smell. He decided not to argue with Trish and miserably made his way in.

The place looked deserted. The garden was barely visible behind the thick grass that was about as tall as he was. A large, broken woman-shaped fountain stood just in the middle. It was missing its head. It was probably lying somewhere in the grass, but he could not see it. The weather had done a lot of damage to it. A big round vase was still in her hands, bearing a large crack. Some of the rainwater was leaking out from its mouth.

The garden gave off a strong earthy smell. Sounds of insects filled the space. Dante swept his gaze across the area. He could see nothing, not a soul in sight. This place was probably abandoned ages ago like the village.

They stopped in front of the hefty front door. As Trish opened it slowly, a vague smell of old furniture and cloths escaped out. The hinges on the door loudly grated against the nails. She poked her head in and peered inside.

She stepped in cautiously, turning her head to look at the scattered bits of furniture, scraps of torn cloth, and mice rustling under the folds of an old carpet. He looked around . . . something was so familiar about this place.

He looked up at the painting he had seen before. It looked so clear in the single shaft of moonlight: the same beautiful arm, the same mask, the same faded colours . . .

"This is the masked queen, and this manor's famously called the masked queen manor," she said and picked up an old book from the dirty floor.

Dante's eyes widened. He had been here before . . . in his dreams . . . _this can't be real_! he thought, utterly shocked!

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	8. Snakes in Shadows

**Chapter Eight:** Snakes in Shadows

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Dante ran his eyes over the painting: it looked exactly like he had seen many nights ago in that dream. Thick cobwebs hung from its once-platinum frame, now drained of all shine. It hung askew under the severally cracked roof, cradling some wisteria between the crevices. A few bluish flowers kissed its frame's dark brown edges.

His gaze fell on the woman again. The paints looked hard, plastered with a thick layer of dust. The painting was cracked at several places. He could see that the shades on her arm had chipped off, revealing the blackened canvas underneath. Even some of the green shades on her mask were missing. The entire painting was a blotchy mess.

He moved his head back and looked up. The entire ceiling was covered in darkness, save for the holes wrought by rain. Behind him, Trish paced around the large hall, looking at the books discarded on the floor. It seemed the place was ransacked. The drawers were open, and the glass cabinets lay broken on the floor.

"Looks like someone was here not long ago," she said from across the room. Her voice resonated for a second in the empty hall before it faded into silence.

Dante looked down at his mud-covered boots and a few rats diving over them in fear as she moved the books around again. "I wonder if they needed the pages to wipe their asses," he remarked and slicked down one of the many cowlicks on his head.

"Forever a comedian, huh? Stop blabbering and help me look," she said with her hands on her hips.

"Are you serious?" he retorted and turned around to look at her. "This looks like a complete dump. Who would want to come here, anyway—other than fulfilling their daring sex fantasies?"

Trish threw the old torn book onto the floor and it almost turned to dust. "When will you start reading to help you in your cases?" she said, annoyed.

"Why? I never thought I needed to," he said in a cheeky voice and slid his hands into his coat's pockets.

"How did you make it through school?" she argued and pulled at the door of the cabinet that was merely hanging there on the last hinge.

"I don't know," Dante sighed, "I guess I just spanked my lovely principal and did the usual stuff. She cleared me and I became the educated, well-mannered man we all know today." He flashed her a fake, innocent smile.

Her face screwed up in mild anger. "Are you going to argue with me all day on this?" she said, irritated.

"Nope, but I don't see why you brought me here. I could use one of those demons with sparkly breasts right about now," he said and clicked his fingers.

Trish rolled her eyes and opened a dusty book. A few torn pages fell out of it and floated down to the floor. Carefully, she turned the fragile pages. Most of the writing was unreadable and had gone black—even the pages were eaten through by insects.

She sighed and pushed the book back into the cabinet propped against the dirty wall with its one last remaining leg. She glided her gaze over the room again, not stopping it on Dante, who was still looking at her for some sort of explanation.

"Hey, I asked you something!" Dante called out from behind as Trish walked down the wide hallway. When no reply came, he walked after her, as well, tearing the last strip of a long curtain hanging at the corridor entrance.

"This place looks creepy. And that's, like, coming from me," he said and looked at the faded paintings hanging on both sides of the hallway.

"Why is it so dark in here?" Trish asked herself and held out her hand. She clenched her fingers and a blue flame fizzled to life on her open palm. It flickered and danced, not going out against the wafts of wind blowing in from somewhere.

"I think I can see just fine," Dante gloated, twisting his lips into a prideful smirk. His grey eyes, set alight in the light of the blue fire, shone like cat-eyes in the dark. He turned his gaze and looked ahead. It was strangely dark. Even his demonic vision could not completely see through the swirling darkness around them.

"The reason I brought you here is that this place is important," she began and walked to the right to make her way out of the corridor, "a lot of demonic activity's been happening here for some time."

"Really?" he asked in surprise and stepped into a giant ball-hall behind Trish. He craned his neck and looked up at a large chandelier hanging over them only by a couple of really rusty screws. It was slightly moving in the light breeze, making odd grinding noises.

"That's why reading is so important," she teased, watching Dante make an awful face at her. "About a century ago, this whole land was owned by this really wealthy woman. She inherited the fortune through her family, but died young under strange circumstances."

He held his gaze and folded his arms across his chest. His ears were filled with the chorus of night sounds, his eyes taking in the bluish light bouncing off the dust-caked marble and tiny crystals on the chandelier. His nose, however, was picking up something familiar, something subtle, but alluring.

"You see, she loved demon lore and practiced some cruel magic once every month," she explained and pointed her finger up at the sky that cradled the moon. "An incident in her childhood had left her face scarred. No one knows what she looked like under the mask."

Dante's nostrils expanded. There—it was that smell again! He clenched his teeth and tried to suppress his urges, but his blood was already starting to boil under his skin with such desire that he did not know how long he would be able to control himself before _that_ heavy sigh escaped his throat.

"It's said that she used to steal women's faces," Trish said and widened her eyes like she was telling a children's horror story.

"Is this for real or are you making this up?" Dante asked, letting out a breathy sigh. He gritted his teeth and scratched his stubble-covered chin and stuffed his hands into the coat's pockets. The smell was so heavy that it was getting hard for him to breathe without relishing a bit of it to soothe and inflame his male passions.

She smiled and the sides of her eyes crinkled a little. "You can't be serious! This is why I brought you here. Before her death, there were rumours among the people of this village that she was a demon," she said and turned her eyes to look at the crumbling hall where they stood. "A lot of young women were found with their faces missing. And guess what? They had bite marks on their necks." She reached a hand up to touch her neck with her forefinger.

"What?" he asked in disbelief, pulling his hands out of his pockets suddenly as if ready to fend off some attacker.

"That's why I always tell you that reading's so important," Trish said and stretched her red lips into a cheeky smile.

Dante huffed. "Can we _please_ stop with the insults and get to the point?" he shot back and folded his arms again.

"As I was saying," she began slowly, still keeping that slight tease in her voice, "the marks we saw are very similar to the ones the dead bodies had—the ones found in this village a long time ago. The only difference are the faces. These bodies have their faces."

He was silent. His ears pricked up at the flutters of a moth flying desperately close to Trish's flame. Its wing touched it and caught fire. It writhed on the floor before it was engulfed in flames. It died after making a few desperate jumps up into the air.

"I think this place has some connection to those murders," she said in a heavy, serious voice. "The first murder took place not far from this manor, and not to mention the demonic activity that's been happening here for the past decades."

Dante leant against the slanted pillar. His eyes were downcast, shining in the moonlight under his grey lashes. His gaze travelled on the floor aimlessly, and his nose was filled with a strong and clear scent. Whatever or whoever gave it off, his senses had finally managed to separate it fully.

"So, what you are saying . . . is that this place is connected to this murder? How?" he asked, keeping his tone so low as if he was whispering to someone.

"It's just a hunch, but I'm convinced we'll find something here," Trish said, eyeing Dante standing still and silent in the shadows. Her eyes could not see him clearly behind the darkness that stood between them.

"A',right," he said, after a long moment of silence and straightened his back, his face slowly coming out of the shadows. "How do we make a connection?"

Trish reduced the distance between them and stood close to him. "We look around," she said, her eyes meeting his grey ones that suddenly looked so dull in the shadows.

"Is _that_ your plan?" Dante asked in a surprised voice, "I thought you had more on your mind!" His left eyebrow went up behind his bangs. He seemed a bit annoyed.

"I'm always open to suggestions! And you—" Trish began and pointed her finger at him in irritation.

"Shhh!" he suddenly cut her off and stood straight in a heartbeat. "Listen." He raised his hand to silence her. A low sound resonated and rose up from somewhere deep in the manor, as if something really heavy and big was slithering across the floor.

Trish's gaze skittered across the floor, and her ears filled with the sounds of the manor. Nothing. What was Dante listening to? "Dante, what are you—"

"Quiet," he stopped her as her hushed voice mingled with that slithering sound again that was beginning to ring inside his ears like an orgy of a thousand twisting snakes. A pain exploded with such force in his head that he was on his knees, fisting his hair in agony.

"Dante!" Trish cried out, clamping her hands on his shaking shoulders. "Dante—Dante, look at me! What's wrong?"

He pressed his hands over his ears and tried to block it out. It felt as if countless hot needles were tearing through his eardrums. He wanted it to stop. He slapped his hands on the floor, and not a second passed when his demonic side took over. Long nails poked out of his fingers, and his skin rippled with the darkness cradled inside him.

"Dante!" Trish shouted his name again, panicking. She did not know what was wrong with him. Her mind was unable to understand the sight before her. Dante . . . on his knees, fighting off the pain? She did not understand, she just could not. Her fingers, digging into the fabric of his coat, felt the shivering skin underneath and it shocked her.

A dangerous growl escaped his parted lips. "Don't—touch me—" he rasped, wheezing from the sudden painful transformation taking him over to the edge. "I said, don't touch me. Get away—" He pushed her back, sending her flying across the massive hall. She got rammed into the roof and came crashing down a second later like ragdoll.

She lay completely still for a moment, feeling the colossal pain spread from her chest through her whole body. Her hand clutched at her chest. About half of her ribs were completely crushed, and Dante had _just_ pushed her back. With sheer force of will, she moved her body, steering her face squashed against the marble floor. She lifted her head and stretched out her left arm, hissing as the broken bones bit into her lungs.

Her teary eyes trembled on her wan face. Pain buzzed in her ear like flies, drowning out the screams resonating in the halls. Beyond the haze on her eyes, Dante twisted and writhed on the floor. His mouth was wide open, letting out loud screams that clove through the painful buzzing trapped in her ears.

"D-Dante—" Trish hissed and put her hands on the cold floor. They trembled, unable to fend off the unbearable pain from her broken bones still weakening her body. She tried to move her left leg, but it was completely numb. She forced her back to move a little and realized: her backbone was completely broken . . .

Blood streamed into her eyes, and for the first time, her demonic heart felt the first tremor of something human: death. Her skull was smashed against the roof and was leaking large spurts of fresh blood pooling around her face. An eerie chill stole over her and tightened its grip on her body. And when it reached her heart, it skipped several beats before it sprang to life and filled her up like a fragile bottle with new demonic energy.

But it was not enough. Dante had done too much damage. If he attacked again, she would be instantly killed. Her arms trembled to life again, but she was still paralysed from the waist down. The bleeding in her head was stopping. Now, only a thin squirt of blood sprayed on the floor. It was still not enough, and all she could do was watch.

Watch as he arched his back, stubbornly controlling the wild demon in him as it tried hard to close him in its grasp. But why? Why was he not letting it cross over and claim him like it always did? She did not know—she could not understand.

Her lips trembled on the marble, wet with the saliva freely leaking out of her mouth that she could not close. Her tongue, salty and wet, was soaked in her own blood cooling around her. Her nails dug into the chest with a pain that refused to leave her. What was happening to him?

Dante's body burnt with an invisible fire tearing at his flesh. His muscles rippled and relaxed in seconds, and the scales pushed in and out of him like knives, cutting his flesh over and over again. He felt the pain as if he was being scorched by a thousand suns. His own demon was going to kill him! He was going to kill him dead!

 _How long would he last,_ Trish wondered, _struggling like this?_ His throat had gone as dry as a bone, and his lungs were exhausted from all that screaming. He refused to look her way even if he had crushed her not long ago, leaving her there to slowly bleed out. He curled up on the floor as his back twisted painfully. Another loud cry filled the halls.

Moments passed and a sea of light washed over the shadows dancing in the ruined corners of the hall. A single long ray struck the pillar's cracked surface and bounced off the few smooth parts and dispersed all over like a shower from a fountain.

In the morning light, her blood shimmered like rubies still drying slowly in the cool drafts. She moved her fingers, slipping them over the coarse mixture of dust and blood. Her body had healed considerably, but her legs were still quite lifeless. She lifted her eyes again to Dante, still trapped in an insufferable ordeal.

He grabbed his neck as if it was the entire source of his pain and parted his severally cracked lips to utter a miserable croak before he collapsed on the floor. His face was hidden under the fall of his hair, and his fingers slightly trembled as some life-force still shook him a little.

Just when she began to crawl towards his still body, a sound, a strange slithering sound, filled the room. And then the scattered shadows turned into snakes, thousands of them, running and writhing to the centre to merge into a giant serpent that looked strangely green in the soft morning light, its bulging yellowish eyes crystal-like and menacing.

It twisted his head at Dante lying not far from it and unhinged its jaw. A dribble of saliva leaked from its massive mouth. It slowly lowered its head and placed it next to him, touching his face with its flickering tongue.

"Get—a-away from him!" Trish shouted, still trying to move her limp legs.

The shadowy serpent raised its head in a flash and brought the glare of its dead eyes on her. It hissed, sending a clear warning her way before it coiled and drew its massive body back. And without much of any warning, it lunged at Dante with such speed that she saw nothing but a blur and took him inside its mouth, standing almost erect on its massive green coils.

Dante's torso, trapped between its bone-crushing jaws, bled profusely from under the long teeth securely lodged into his chest. Blood fell down to the floor in thin streams, emptying him of a bit of life that was still left inside him. The serpent let out deep and menacing sound before its entire body began to pull back as if about to disappear.

"No!" she screamed and threw her arm forward and shot a massive charge that drained her completely.

It hit the serpent square in its frontal body and knocked it backwards. Its head smashed into the wall, and its body splattered into countless shadows before it disappeared. Trish screwed her head around and looked for Dante in the hall, but he had fallen out of the broken window into the backyard. A sigh escaped her lips before she fell completely unconscious . . .

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	9. Blackout

**Chapter Nine** : Blackout

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A woodsy scent lingered around Dante, creeping into his nostrils that flared to suck in several breaths. The air was redolent and heavy with the smell, and it spun his thoughts into webs—a delicate and intricate cobweb. His chest heaved, and he let out a loud sigh, feeling his lungs ease inside his wounded chest.

Two large gaping cracks there began to close up. Bones reached out from either side and quickly began to mend themselves. Thread-like tendrils of tissue wriggled and latched onto the white bones, healing him. The pain in his head was still unbearable, but he forced his lids back up to look where he was.

Blinding light of the sun seared his eyes. He snapped them shut and then opened them a second later, looking with wonder at the long ripe branches overhead. Rays of sunlight exploded into thin threads of yellow, bending over the harsh surface of the trees. Leaves quivered in the first drafts of morning breeze. _I'm . . . outside?_ he thought.

He turned his head slightly to look around. He had fallen into the backyard. Reddish steel rods poked out of the ground and encircled the entire yard, which he thought was several meters wide. His gaze stopped for a moment on the rods again. They were corroding under the violent lashes of rain and wind. (This whole place was.)

Thick green grass surrounded him. It was cold and soggy under his cheeks. He gathered himself up to a sitting position. His chest was hurting and his head was almost blank. He had no idea how he got here. All he could remember was that sound, and after that, everything in his memory seemed to vanish into black.

Dante's hands shook a little from exhaustion. He put them to his face to wipe away the morning dews still falling on him from the lush green leaves above. He breathed out the heavy air in his lungs and loudly breathed back in as if readying himself for something, and finally, with a bit of effort, got to his feet.

A shadow fell over his eyes, and he stumbled forward but regained his balance before he fell face-first onto the ground. Slamming his hands on his knees, he breathed in the fresh air several times, watching his vision sway like a boat on a raging ocean. When a few seconds passed, the haze across his eyes cleared.

He stood up again, wiping his face on what was left of his sleeve. He looked around and found nothing but overgrown bushes, crumbling walls, and that same broken fountain standing with the last of its strength under the cloudy sky. Dante lifted his head and looked at the broken window about sixty feet above the gaping open door.

It was smashed through with something. Thinking that it was probably due to some storm, he took one step but stopped suddenly when a musical laughter rippled through the air. And that explosion of alluring smell took the reins of his senses again. He spun his head around almost mechanically at the source, feeling his throat ache and heart beat rapidly against his will.

There, under the tangled wisteria, stood that beautiful woman who had driven him mad with lust. She tapped her fingers on the wall, smiling. That smile had no allure. It was soft, sincere, earthy . . . but he did not care. All he wanted was to trap her underneath him, and just this once, taste her to his heart's content.

She stepped out from behind the wall and walked softly on the grass, holding the frills of her black dress. Her hair still looked as messy as ever upon her shoulders. He could not stop looking at her as she slowly reduced the distance between them. Suddenly, she broke into a jog. Her hair whipped about her face, and her soft breasts bounced under the silk skirt.

And then, before he could even move his arm, she passed right through him. It felt like the rush of a gentle wind. A heady daze enveloped his senses. It was as if he had tasted just a bit of her but could not satisfy himself fully. Needy, he turned around, only to find her in the arms of another man. He could not understand what was going on. A dream? A Memory?

Dante bit his lower lip, drawing out blood. They were cracked and bruised, making him look like a thirsty traveller lost in the desert. He looked on as she parted her lips and kissed the man. He felt strange. How badly he wanted her—it was almost crazy! Right now, the only thing he felt was jealousy and longing. And he did not understand why. It was like he was not himself at all ... the smell of her was so strong and it hung there in the air—an impossible weight that was beginning to crush him again.

The sound around him was suddenly cut short. She looked his way as if _finally_ noticing his presence. His breath stopped in his throat when she let go of the man and slowly drew near him. Her face took on a puzzled look, and her eyes seemed to look at something beyond him.

"Emma?" she whispered, holding her gaze. The man behind her took hold of her shoulders as if he was trying to stop her.

Dante turned his head and looked around and stopped his eyes on that missing girl he had seen so many days ago in that aged photograph. Her face was screwed up in anger, and her brow furrowed with several shallow lines. Her gaze was so intense that it refused to leave the mysterious woman. She clenched her fingers and ran off behind the wall.

"Emma!" the woman called out behind her, holding out her hand that disappeared inside his chest like the show of a circus spectre.

"Let her go, Salome," the man said and rubbed her shoulders.

"But, Leon—" the woman named Salome protested and longingly looked at the wall right behind Dante.

Leon sighed, "fine, I'll go after her." He ran through him to where Emma had vanished, leaving her behind.

When he disappeared behind the cracked wall, Dante returned his gaze back to Salome who was still looking his way. Knowing that it was just some sort of memory or a beautiful illusion, he stretched his hand and traced the airy outline of her lips with his fingers.

She became wispy and dispersed into countless feathery threads at the touch of his fingers, leaving him alone again. Still dazed, his mind bounced back to where he had heard the sounds of those girls. "Emma . . . Salome . . . " he said lowly, talking to himself. He did not understand what it meant. Were these two the same girls?

Putting his hand on his head, he buried his fingers in his hair. Ever since that woman came to his office, he had been having strange dreams, surreal visions, and even picking up voices of long forgotten memories. As a demon, he knew about the fragmentation of the soul when it left behind a memory. But the dreams . . . what about them?

A crunch sounded behind him. He spun around and found Trish bloodied and bruised, standing under the broken pillar near the entrance door. Blood had dried on her fair face, and her jacket was wet and stained. For a few moments, he kept staring at her in disbelief, meeting her hurt blue eyes.

"Trish," he said in disbelief and ran across the thick grass to her. "What happened? Are you a'right?" He grabbed her shoulders and looked down at her puzzled face.

She put her hand against her heaving chest and took in a lungful of cold morning air. "You don't remember?" she asked and looked into his eyes that did not betray how confused he seemed.

"Trish, what happened? Who did this to you?" he asked and there was anger in his voice and face this time.

She let out a loud sigh. "I'll tell you when we get to your office. Let's just—get out of here," she said calmly and gulped down bubbles of blood still rising to her throat.

"You aren't making much sense, but okay," he said and scooped her up into his arms. "So, I guess, this trip was a complete waste of time for everyone."

"I don't think so," Trish said and leant her head against his chest. "But I doubt we'll find anything here—now that this place has been ransacked."

"So a waste of time, then?" Dante said and made his way through the backyard.

"Shut up, Dante! Just walk, okay?" she snapped at him and closed her eyes.

He rolled his eyes and muttered something along the lines of, ' _doesn't care . . . always complaining_ ,' but said nothing to Trish.

# # # # # #

Dante ran his fingers through his hair. They had grown long since yesterday and hung like aged, grey curtains around his face. It was about time he gave himself a good haircut, but it would have to wait. Trish was badgering him about that manor incident, and no matter how cool he tried to act, he was annoyed that he could not remember a damn thing.

"So," he began and leant against the cracked wall of his office, "you said that I did that to you, and . . . some mysterious snake tried to gobble me up?"

Trish stared back at him in mild disbelief. She was about to start something annoying again. He had a gut feeling. "You know, you make it sound almost stupid, Dante," she said with an air of annoyance.

"I never said I didn't believe you," he replied with a wave of his hand. "But it still sounds kinda fishy. I mean, me? Screaming?"

"Dante!" she warned, raising her voice considerably. "Just tell me if you remember anything at all."

"I told you everything. How many times are you going to ask me about this? This would be the eleventh time, by the way," he said and grabbed a soda can off the table. He popped it open and took a few sips.

She sighed and gulped in the stale air inside his office. No matter how many times she came here, it always felt stuffy. There were _just_ two windows on either side of the double door, and Dante refused to open them because they made his juke-box dusty. It was one of his annoying habits that drove her up the wall.

Trish took three steps and stood close to Dante, who was busy drinking the whole can of soda. "If you opened your mouth a little more, you might swallow that can whole," she said sarcastically, getting a scowl in response. "Show me your chest."

He frowned and wiped the fizz off his lips. "What for?" he asked quickly and threw the can at the far end of his office. It bounced off the wall and ended up on the pile of trash behind his drums.

She pursed her lips, fisted his shirt in her hands, and pulled it up. There was nothing on his chest. It was as if that thing never took him inside its mouth. Not a single mark or even a line . . . that was disappointing. He swiftly pushed his shirt down, looking downright scandalized.

"Are you crazy?" he blurted out and brushed down the shirt over and over again. "Don't get kinky with me, Mom. I told you, didn't I? I feel _great_!"

"I swear it, one of these days," Trish growled and raised her fist in air, "I'm just gonna hit you hard."

"That sounds too dirty, mom." Dante chuckled and that earned him a tight slap on the head. "Violence is never the answer," he said behind her as she walked to the table to pick up the ringing phone.

"Devil may cry," she said into the phone, still glaring at him. "Another one? Where? A'right, we'll be there as soon as possible." She slammed down the phone and picked up his coat.

"You didn't have to slap me that hard. I can't feel half of my head," he accused and pointed his finger at her.

She pulled up the zip of her jacket and threw the dark blue coat at him. "Stop goofing around and let's go," she said and opened the heavy wooden door. Cold air gusted inside and filled the room. It had been raining again.

Dante put on his coat and pushed the hair out of his eyes. "I heard what he said . . . partially, of course," he added in a fake-serious voice and stepped out of the office. Rain pitter-pattered around them, and just occasionally, thunder rumbled in the dark clouds.

"And you wonder why you're so damn poor? This partial hearing must be to blame. Anyways," she forestalled him when he opened his mouth to retort, "the murder scene isn't far from here—let's go."

"Where?" he asked and stepped under the shed of his office. Rain drummed overhead and sprayed over his coat.

"Just two blocks away," she replied and started to the alleyway only about a hundred meters away from his office.

"This close," Dante said lowly, matching Trish's pace. His mind quickly jumped back to the catalogue of scents he had picked up. There were three scents and all three belonged to women. He could easily tell because of their aphrodisiac, musky, sweet smells; but two of them belonged to the same woman . . . or were very similar, he guessed.

He just did not understand. His eyes stared ahead, but his thoughts stayed trapped in this mystery. He did not want to tell Trish anything. There was no point to it. What would he tell her? That he was feeling sex-hungry because of some weird smell? And that scent of a woman was giving him hallucinations, dreams, and making him feel really horny? Even the thought was embarrassing.

Whatever this thing was, it was copying scents of two women. But why? What did it want with him? What Trish told him about the incident scared the hell out of him. This was too dangerous for her to handle. What if he attacked her again? He knew she was nowhere near in his power-league and could die easily. Hell, she was lucky to be alive. This thing . . . he was dead-sure now that it wanted him.

And then he was back to square one. A small frown wrinkled his forehead. Wet, grey hair clung to his cheeks. Puffs of warm breath escaped his nostrils and lips. The demon had struck again. And just like before, it chose the rain and killed right under his nose. It was taunting him. He almost felt like it wanted him to find the clues that led back to its infernal lair.

Dante clenched his teeth, moving his lower jaw from side to side. Even if he knew the rain to be the right time of reaping, it did not make any difference at all. It killed and left the mess out in the open. And he was no closer to finding it now than he was back when this whole shit began.

If it was a devourer, then there would be no bodies. It would just have eaten them whole. But it needed blood. And why . . . why did it take the form of that woman called Salome? A small smile ran across his wet lips. _Salome, what an odd name,_ he thought _, a woman that got St. John beheaded in one of those New Testament stories._ He blinked a few times and then realised something: that woman had an odd scent around her when she came to his office.

Dante licked his lips. The dreams, the hallucinations, and the woman that night in his room, they were all . . . _similar_ , somehow. The dreams he saw left him groggy and drained. He always felt disoriented. Why did this thing want him to sleep? And the odd scent that flew to him from god knows where . . . before he would see the apparition of that woman in his dreams or his room. All this drama was making his head hurt.

All that Salome woman had to do was lie under him for about four to five hours, and he would just lay bare every taste and scent that ever existed on her body. God, the thought was stirring his loins again. _Back to the mystery stuff, please_! he scolded himself and turned the corner with Trish beside him. He had smelt the picture Salome left him and the tangles of wisteria by the wall at the manor. There was no mistaking it—the scent belonged to Emma or whatever that chick was called. You could never trust fishy-looking ghost chicks, anyway.

 _But the third smell,_ his thought came to a crashing halt as that alluring odour the surrounding air was redolent of filled his senses in such a way that he felt as if he was a frantic animal desperately trying to get out of a small cage; but this time, his defences were a bit better because of the gentle rain, and despite the hacking of the scent at the thick walls of his shaky control, he finally managed to put his finger on it: The scent belonged to Salome!

Slowly, he made it into the alleyway. The same scene played before him like a classic murder investigation movie: the same police lines, the same churned ground, and the same heavy detective greeted his vision. He looked a tad bit heavier than before. And beyond him was another dead body that looked ten times worse than the last one.

Oddly enough, there was a little foul stench in the air. The detective looked back at him and pointed his hand at the body. "Quite a scene, huh?" he lazily remarked, returning his attention back to the woman's body who had nearly half of her face chewed off, along with a ripped-open left breast. It was not a pretty sight. The thing had mauled the woman as though it was crazy hungry.

Dante's eyes tried to find any clue again, but there was nothing other than the decaying remains of a dead young woman. Half of her head and face were bitten off all the way down to her neck. Her neck and collar bones were broken and peeking out of the torn, bitten-off muscles and skin tissues. The part of the face that remained was like a worn out mask about to get peeled off of the rough surface underneath.

Chunks of her shoulder and upper torso were missing, and the arms lying lifelessly by her sides were flexed as if she tried to put up a fight. Two of her fingers were painfully twisted, and a few of them were floating in the small puddle with the skin still attached to them. It had punched a giant hole in her chest and ripped out the heart that lay smashed into a goopy mess beside the right arm with some of the veins still attached. He wanted to vomit . . .

"This is—" Trish gasped, looking horrified. "Has anyone else been here? The forensics, I mean?"

"No, but they're on their way. It shouldn't take them long," Blake sighed out and got to his feet slowly. "I've seen all there is to see, and I couldn't find anything. Knock yourself out till they get here. But I doubt you'll find anything." With that, he left them alone with the body.

"Dante?" she asked, looking at him as he lowered himself next to the body, bending his head down to take a whiff. "What is it?" She moved forward and bent a little to look at what he was doing.

He sniffed and closed his eyes. That odd smell was that of a dead woman lingering on this one. _So I've been getting horny from the smell of a dead chick?_ He bit his own tongue. It was almost _tragic_ . . . and made slightly less sense than before. But there was no way in hell he could mess it up this time. It was obvious—the alluring, sexual scent was that of a fresh dead body mixed with Salome's. And every time he went to a murder site, or anywhere else, it was sprinkled everywhere like a spray of rose water on a funeral bed. It had probably marked this whole neighbourhood like a pesky cat in heat.

Feeling heady from breathing in the heavy scent, Dante stood up straight. He shook his head a little and squeezed his eyes shut, regaining just a bit of control. "Let's go back," he said over his shoulder and slowly opened his clouded eyes.

"Is there something you want to tell me?" Trish asked, a bit annoyed by his secrecy.

"Maybe," he said and bared his teeth in a cheeky grin. He made his way out of the filthy alley and waved goodbye as he walked past the detective. Trish, as usual, stopped for a proper farewell.

He did not even make it past the third alleyway when a thick cloud of that accursed scent began to suffocate the life out of him. It was close. Too close. He could feel it. _But where is it?_ He frantically looked around but could see nothing. His quivering hand tried to reach the gun in the holster, but his head was beginning to spin like crazy and that thought just flew out of his mind; and he did not care enough to catch it again.

He staggered, and his body flung itself towards the nearest wall. A strange weakness spread through his legs and they started to buckle under his own weight. He felt as if he was getting crushed underneath something so big that his body would never be able to lift. He put his hand on the wall for support as his breath turned ragged and shaky.

"Dante . . . I need you," a needy, sweet voice of a woman said from a few meters away. He lifted his head and found himself looking at Salome clad in a soft black dress, showing the delicate frame of her beautiful body. Her nipples were stiff and inviting, completely visible behind her dress. Her hair flowed around her face like snakes, and her amber eyes sparked with such lust and wild invitation that the man in him could not resist. She walked through the man standing not far from him.

"Dante!" Trish shouted from a couple of meters away. There was panic in her voice as the slash of her thick heels resounded on the wet pavement. The dull thuds of her walk progressed to a jog, but he did not understand. It was like the world had slowed down around him. He desired her and nothing more. Even that small control he had built up to protect himself crumbled down. He took a step forward, looking dazed and hungry. Something wet bubbled up in his eyes, and suddenly, red colour enveloped them completely.

Blood flowed down his eyes and mouth, and even his ears felt wet and warm. He smelt rusty. His knees finally gave way, and he dropped down like a ragdoll, falling face first on the pavement. Trish's scream drowned under his failing consciousness. And as seconds passed, he was hurled into darkness, lying under the rain with his own blood flowing freely from his body . . .

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	10. Dead Skin

**Chapter Ten** : Dead Skin

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Morning had long passed but few hours of sun remained. And when the sky began to turn red at the horizon, evening would soon be upon them. Trish sank into the chair when Dante gave out a loud moan. She propped her head on her hands, and with tiredness in her eyes, watched him move his head a little. He was completely unconscious.

Five whole hours had passed by and there was no way around this mess. She had tried to jolt him out of this state, but nothing worked—nothing! Stretching out her hand, she pressed it against his burning forehead. It felt strange. The son of the legendary demon was feverish. Cool sweat drops glistened on his skin and trailed down to soak up the spotty sheets.

She brushed her fingers on the dried spots. This was the third time he had bled from his eyes, ears, and nose. She knitted her brows together and pulled a soaked cloth out of the cold water jug. Slowly, she ran it over his heated forehead and then moved it down to wipe away the thin lines of bloody tears sluggishly moving down his sallow cheeks.

She stood up and wrung out the cloth above a small bucket by her feet and pushed the heavy chair back. The water slapped the sides of the bucket and went still after few seconds. She sat beside him on the bed and ran her eyes over his strained face. He seemed to be in a lot of pain. His parted lips were dry and cracked.

His eyes moved rapidly under his lids, and the grey lashes trembled upon his cheeks. It was as though . . . he was dreaming. He clenched his teeth and arched his neck before going completely still again. Trish's eyes went wide; the blackness was spreading through his veins rapidly. She pulled the sheets down to his navel and touched his bare chest.

The place where the serpent had bitten him now looked strange as if someone tried to push thick pegs all the way through but left them embedded halfway. The skin around the dents was rippling like the disturbed surface of a lake. She could tell the demon in him was trying to heal this . . . but this looked too ghastly. Somehow, he was unable to heal this.

The veins around the wounds were black, charred beyond mortal repair. It was like the web of a spider, spreading and snaring his life. The inky blackness was seeping through his body, travelling up, just barely missing his heart that was still keeping it at bay. Instead, it was moving all around his vulnerable heart. The thing was fighting a losing battle.

Round and round the blackness went, and now, the dead veins were a mass of thorny vines desperately trying to kill his immortal heart—make it mortal again. Out of the vines branched out three forked threads, cracking his skin and steadily moving up to his neck. His throat was a mess: black wriggled over his skin like poison ivy.

A vein throbbed in his neck, and right in front of her eyes, took on a light grey shade. Another loud, distressed moan escaped his lips. His jaws opened wide, but no sound came out of his throat. A small drop of blood oozed out of his severely parched lips. Feeling helpless, Trish pressed the cloth against his lips and squeezed, letting the cool water fall down his throat. He gulped it down eagerly and breathed out a satisfied sigh.

She drew up her eyebrows and confusion slowly crept across her face. Her pink lips, left untouched by lipstick today, twitched slightly. Her mind was in a muddle. Moving her gaze back and forth between his face and the slow movement of the blackness, she ran a hand through her hair and stifled a sob that threatened to go past her lips. This really was beyond her!

She dropped her gaze to the floor and absentmindedly followed the dusty prints of her heels. Enzo was around when Dante collapsed. She had thanked her lucky stars. Who knew what would have happened, otherwise? Right now, the big man was rummaging through her vast collection of books for anything that might concern them. So far . . . nothing—not a single call from her office up in the city.

Trish drew a long breath and lifted her eyes to settle them on Dante. Three more grey lines were wriggling up from the circle surrounding his heart. They looked alive, snaking and squirming like tiny snake hatchlings, sniffing out something to feed on. They fanned out over his throat and joined countless others that messed-up his skin.

They trembled and rippled before getting coloured in black. She traced the lines with her eyes only to find five more emerge out of that dreadful, bizarre circle. Her face erupted into a cold sweat. No matter how much she denied it, whatever was happening to him, it was happening faster now. She sighed out in frustration and pushed some strands out of his eyes.

Heavy footsteps pounded on the staircase before a short man with a giant belly swung open the door. He put his hands on his knees to catch his ragged breath and breathed in loudly. "I went through your entire collection—save of this protection-barrier-spell, I found nothin'," he explained and showed her a heavy book clutched tightly in his grubby right hand.

Trish took a quick glance at Dante's tense face and got to her feet. "I knew we didn't have anything for this. But thanks for looking," she said, taking the book from his thick hand. She opened the book and flicked through the pages. There it was, the protection barrier spell. The most powerful one she had in her collection.

She furrowed her brow; it would drain nearly all of her demonic power and leave Dante completely defenseless. She would probably collapse. It was risky. She placed her thumb between her lips and nervously bit it. She had been practicing magic for quite some time now. The banshee incident in the church, the demon dog uptown—she defeated them using magic; but she had never used something this advanced. It was far too tricky and draining, even for her.

Still caught up in her thoughts, she turned her head at Dante whose breathing was getting erratic. Several grunts and groans rumbled in his throat and his relaxed features tightened in agony. He arched his back and clenched his fingers. His jaws opened wide, and a dry low cry still ringing in his throat, turned into a sharp wail.

"Dante!" Trish yelled, dropping the book down on the floor. She looked panic-stricken and did not know what to do. She buried her hands in her hair and fisted them, her eyes wide and red-rimmed, burning with tears.

The circle's blackness spluttered over his heart, soaking through his skin like a black ink through a new sheet of paper. And then it exploded so suddenly that she never saw it coming. Black droplets splattered over her shocked face. His body trembled and a sputtering breath came from his mouth as if it was the last one he would ever draw. Then he went completely still.

Sounds of splashes filled the room. The blackness erupted from his heart, fell down the sides of the bed in a heavy cascade, and drained down the cracks in the floor. She ran out of the room and watched the liquid travel down the small drains at the corners of his large living room. It was going down into the sewers!

She ran up, retracing her wobbly steps and shoved Enzo out of the way, who looked pale and totally out of it. Not even thinking once, she whipped out the dagger from her pocket and drove it into her palm. Pain slightly disturbed her features. A fresh squirt of blood came out of her wound. She pulled the knife out and threw it aside.

"Stand back!" Trish told Enzo, who gave a nervous nod and squashed his over-sized back against the wall. She sat down onto her knees and quickly drew a symbol. Blue energy spilt out of her hand and formed a small bubble around it.

She cast one last glance Dante's way, who looked completely lifeless, and slapped her hand on the symbol. Drops of blood flew up around her hand, burning purple in the blue light of her demonic energy. The circle expanded a little. She stood up, mustering all her strength and heaved a sigh, draining all her energy into the rippling bubble.

The circle expanded with full force; and it swallowed Dante and herself, even Enzo, whole. Electric blue light shone like a mantle of silk on Dante's calm face. The light washed over the entire room and it lit up in a shower of magnificent colour. It latched itself to the walls and sluiced down the room and travelled further down the hall till it had the whole agency in its blue grasp

Trish panted laboriously, feeling the last bit of demonic strength leave her. Her legs were like jelly, ready to give out. She clenched her fingers and stopped the magic flow. It was done. The barrier hardened like a blue diamond before it became completely invisible. She dropped down onto her knees in exhaustion, bracing her hands on the floor.

The chill hovering around her receded to the dark depths of shadows; palpable warmth bubbled up and enveloped the entire room. Flush spread across her cheeks, and slowly, the demon in her began to heave and haul her strength back to her core. At the sound of Dante's sigh, she scrambled to her feet, feeling her head fall forward.

Her head bent down under the force of dizziness, but even then, she slowly sat down on the bed, knocking her knees together to keep them from trembling. Her eyes skittered across his chest and the disappearing mark. Colour of life blossomed in his skin, and his demon devoured the blackness ruthlessly.

When she blinked the second time, it was gone. Her sharp ears listened to the slow and calm beats of his heart, pumping and pushing warm blood through his body. Webby red veins resurfaced like a fishing net, numerous and throbbing with blood. She puffed out her cheeks and let out a loud sigh . . . the barrier worked!

He suddenly opened his grey eyes, narrowed them on her, and propped himself up on his elbows. His lips trembled, still parched and lined with numerous cuts. He lowered his eyes when she embraced him and curled her arms around his waist.

"What's up with you?" he managed after a long sigh.

"Nothing," she sniffed out and breathed in the muskiness his wet hair gave off. She backed away and cupped a trembling hand against his damp cheek, her eyes meeting his with a meaningful affection.

Dante said nothing and placed his hand to his chest. His fingers trembled over the heart that still continued to throb, nestled like a precious, immortal philosopher's stone wedged between his lungs. Like an eternal bird in a cage, trembling and shaking under his ribs, it too felt forlorn, destitute of reason. Why was this happening to him?

# # # # # #

The thought was already a plague that had spread and taken over his body. He was succumbing to that scent like a thirsty man giving into the ruthless charms of a mirage that would never satisfy his thirst. Not in a million years. He was diseased somehow. He knew it. But he did not know how to rid himself of this growing infatuation that would be the death of him.

Even the thought of that woman was like relishing a forbidden fruit that could kill him. His body and mind felt the stabs of mortal change. This lust, swelling like an endless ocean of thoughts in his mind, refused to contain itself. No matter how hard he tried, he always lost the reins of his desire and it galloped freely, bringing him that much closer to his death.

Dante kneaded his burning temple. That woman had assaulted his senses. Never in his life had he heard, no, felt the wings of death . . . so close and so loud like the tolls of a funeral bell in the stillness of cold nights. He felt empty as if he was a red wine in a holy chalice, and she had already drunk more than half of it, leaving nothing but traces of her lips' touch on him. So fleeting . . . and filled with such beautiful, deadly allure.

His immortal existence had become suddenly mortal. Poetic. He had to put a stop to it. He drew in a calm breath, locking his worries deep inside his heart that held so many of his burdens. He lifted his eyes and settled them on Trish again. She looked tired and worn out. A gentle smile ghosted over her full lips.

"You gave me quite the scare," she whispered and lightly pinched his cheek. "What happened?"

He avoided her blue eyes, and she tried to see through the secrets he kept from her. "I don't know," he breathed out convincingly and returned his gaze back to her. "One second I was walking, and the next, my face was kissing the freaking pavement." He pointed his hand downwards and became silent again.

She studied his expressionless face for a few fleeting moments. "You were sniffing the body—why?" she asked and looked for any odd expression on his face.

"For traces of any demonic energy," he replied smoothly and sat up straight. He looked at the last shafts of sunlight coming in through the window. His pupils shrank; the light was bending off something.

Looking at Dante's face tightening in confusion, Trish explained, "that would be the protection barrier. I had no choice but to use it to save you." She pulled herself up to her feet, still feeling the overwhelming pangs of weakness.

He pulled his eyes away from the shower of redness that looked flimsy and almost bizarre beyond the bluish tinge from that barrier. "So I was about to kick the bucket? " he asked like he was talking to himself. "Anyway, did you find out about that woman's address?" He rolled out of bed and shoved the spotty sheets back.

She quirked her eyebrow. "For once, Dante, focus on the case instead of that woman you obviously want to sleep with!" she accused and put her hands on her hips.

"What's wrong with that?" he quickly defended himself and scratched his sweaty hair. "But that's not why I want her address . . . for now, at least."

"For _now_?" Trish broke off, starting to get irritated by his casual attitude. "By the way, what's with the sudden interest in . . . whatever she's called." She spun around and watched him rummage through his messy closet.

"Don't you find it odd that she never bothered to show up?" he asked and pulled out a light-blue T-shirt. "That and her sister's running around in trash-bags three blocks away. She may be a knock-out but her attitude's starting to creep me out."

"Right," she shot back with a sarcastic edge to her voice. "I'm sure she _totally_ creeps you out." She shook her head in a disapproving manner.

"Fine, don't believe me," Dante said, shrugging his shoulders. "What about the family files from that detective?" He turned around, leaving his closet door open. Three of his shirts fell out of the tangled mess.

She let out a loud sigh. "I've got them downstairs, but I still have to look through them," she said and leant against the hefty looking closet.

He eased his head through the opening of the old-looking T-shirt that was heavily frayed at the edges. "What're you still doing here? Get the hell out of my room!" he snapped at Enzo who was still standing wide-eyed at the far end of the room.

Enzo blinked several times and then adjusted the dirty cap hanging low over his face. "Dante, you're such an ungrateful bastard," he said rather spitefully and made his way out of the room.

Trish clucked her tongue in a disapproving manner. "You should be ashamed of yourself. Without Enzo, you would've been dead by now," she scolded him, looking quite stern.

"Yeah, I know. I should totally be kissing his ass," he retorted and smoothed down the crinkled shirt.

"Just get downstairs," she sighed out in a bored voice and left the room.

He cast a quick glance at the clear sky. There were no clouds in sight. A few stars were beginning to twinkle and announce the arrival of night. Tall shadows reared up in his room. With a weary hang of his head, he sighed. There were no clouds and it was not going to rain any time soon. He had to think of something; and for the first time, he knew what to do.

Sluggishly, Dante made his way downstairs. Trish had her nose buried in a file in her hand. Enzo was slapping his precious cap against his thigh. All of this was annoying as usual. If this case did not end soon, he might as well just buy himself a coffin! When he stepped down the final stair, it creaked loudly, as though about to break under his weight.

"Have you put on some weight?" she joked and closed the file. "Didn't I tell you to cut on those pizzas and sundaes? All of that junk's going straight to your hips."

He looked at her in disbelief. "Nonsense, I am feathery light," he said and pulled a hurt face. "Finished reading? What does it say?"

She slipped the file into a large folder. "First, apologize to Enzo. He really helped you out," she said with an air of sincerity that made Enzo crack a broad grin.

"Really? How about I give him a face full of knuckles instead?" he said and made two fists and pointed them in Enzo's direction whose grin vanished the next second. "He ruined my car the other day. He's lucky I didn't say . . . or _do_ anything. And forget him, what about the reports? I've had just about enough of this stupid case." He sat on the edge of his table decorated with used soda cans and the usual garbage.

"It says that all the girls they found knew each other. They were friends," she explained and placed her hand on the closed file. The look in her eyes changed rapidly. It was dark and meaningful and he knew what she was thinking. "What I don't understand is, what does all of this have to do with you?"

He raised his head and looked at her as if a thick haze just cleared from his eyes. "Me?" he asked and created a convincing confused expression on his face. "I'm not sure what you're talking about." He moved a small can forward with the tip of his forefinger, rolling it to the far end of the table.

"Please!" she said curtly and slapped her hand on the stack of files. "The tiredness, the fainting spell that nearly killed you yesterday—you think I'm stupid? You're obviously not telling me something."

He turned his head at her, meeting her narrowed eyes with his typical boldness. "And what secret would that be? You're making it sound like I want to die or something. Trust me, I'm not a suicidal thirteen-year-old girl experiencing the hormonal fluctuations during her first period," he ended with a scholarly sigh.

Her lips twitched at the corner. "How the hell do you even know _that_?" she asked and raised both her hands into the air. She seemed a little mortified.

"Aren't we getting side-tracked?" he said, getting back to the complicated conversation. "And how many times do you want to annoy me about this? I don't know why I smacked you and I don't know why I fainted."

"Fine, don't come crying to me if you end up dead somewhere," Trish shot back and slumped down onto the stone-hard cushions on the chair. "At least buy a new chair," she hissed and caressed her bottom.

"Broke your hip again, mom?" Dante teased and let out a soft chuckle that was met with a growl and another uncultured insult. "Trish, don't you use that language under my roof. I'm serious." He shook his finger at her and rubbed his eyes to wipe away the tiredness.

At that moment, the door opened. The scent and the sound drew his eyes towards her. She stood on his doorstep, looking just as beautiful as the day she first came here. Her hair was dark, tousled in a sultry manner, and looked twisted like the snakes in a frenzy of wanton lust and mating. Her full lips parted a little, and she breathed out the air in her lungs . . . in such a sultry manner that his demonic senses took a flight.

With every move she made, he could feel her or wanted to feel her. It was as if his senses were caressing her body. His eyes travelled over her face, her round breasts, and the wrinkles in the skirt around her groin. He sniffed all of her: the earthy smell of her skin and the alluring scent of her ripe genitals. It was driving him insane.

His grip on the table hardened and his knuckles turned white. He gulped in the over-powering smell that permeated the air and focused his swaying vision on her beautiful face. "Look who decided to show up," he said throatily, feeling his skin tremble and tickle with arousal. "I missed you, babe."

"I'm sorry," she said politely and averted his gaze, "I fell ill."

Trish stood up and studied her as though she was already a culprit. "Ma'am, you never even told us your name. I had to get it from the police station. Salome, wasn't it?" she asked, still carefully watching her when she nodded.

His eyes went wide. So this woman was the same person from that memory! "Ill? Sounds terrible. I mean, such a pretty thing like you. So, what can I do for you?" He threw a sincere smile at her and pushed down the burning lust that was beginning to eat away at his control.

"I," Salome breathed out and lowered her eyes, "I want you to expedite the investigation." She met his eyes that were filled to the brim with wild lust.

"Why?" Trish spoke first and stole a glance at Dante's face twisted in an odd expression.

Salome squeezed her eyes shut. Her whole body shook a little as if the chill outside was stealing its way across her delicate skin. "Because . . . they are handing the case over to the state police," she choked out and coughed into her fist.

"Are you all right?" Trish asked with concern. "You should take a seat." She drew a chair for her to sit on.

Salome held up her hand. "It's all right. I was just leaving. I came here to ask about the—I mean, have you found anything yet?" She looked at Dante, her eyes widening with a pleading, rueful expression that masked something more.

Even if she was ill, and even if he had promised himself to suppress his lust, he could not help it. His thoughts had taken flight into his dreams where he had her underneath him, moaning and sighing as he kissed her parted lips, her soft breasts, her body, and the musky, wet genitals between the softness of her thighs.

It felt so real. He circled his lips with his tongue as if he had just tasted her. His body was getting warm, and he could feel himself hardening at the thoughts of invading her pliant body over and over again. Trish's voice snapped him out of his secret thoughts. She was explaining how they had failed so far to capture the culprit.

A sharp pain rose in his temple, and he realized that there was this odd third scent about them. He cocked his nose and sniffed. It was coming from her! "I see," Salome said with difficulty and fished a folded paper out of her purse. "This is my number. Please, call me if something comes up." She stretched her arm to give it to Dante.

He hopped off the table and slid his hand over hers. His eyes caught something strange. The woman was wearing lenses; but before he could make up his mind to ask her or not, she disappeared through the front door behind the dense fog.

"Well, if this continues, we'll end up on the road. Why hand the case over to the state police?" Trish said and leant against the large table. "Let's go through this again, Enzo. We might find something this time."

He heard Enzo's boots shuffle. He brought the paper close to his nose and whiffed the scent lingering on his hand. It did not make any sense. His hand dropped down limply by his side, and he squashed the paper in his fist. This woman . . . she was wearing a corpse's scent on herself?

His jaw went tense. This time, he had managed to match the scents perfectly. Whoever this woman was, she had the scents of Emma and a dead body on her. Her _own_ dead body!

# # # # # #


	11. The Final Dream

**Chapter Eleven** : The Final Dream

 **Rating Warning** : Mild Sexual Content and Disturbing Imagery.

# # # # # #

Dante stood under the shed and listened to a cacophony of sounds that rushed to him. There had been no murders in the past few days and the weather was clear. He was right: the demon _did_ need the rain. But what kind of demon was it? Why was it draining these women dry? And why was Salome dead, yet so alive and beautiful?

He let out a loud sigh. She had disappeared again. Her house was empty. No one knew where she went. If he did not know any better, she could be involved in all of this dirty mess—just a pretty face to throw him off guard. He clenched his fingers inside his pockets. There was that spurt of lust again. How he hated that, his damn hard-on, his one-sided lust. If only she knew! The things he wanted to do to her were enough to give seven Bible-thumpers full and final heart attacks.

He lifted his head and stared up at the blinding light of the sun. It was red, blazing like a ball of fire so far up in the sky. There was not a single stray cloud in sight to give any shade from the sun. It was so hot today. His face was sweaty and the traffic and all that smoke were not making it any better. Police cars blared and rushed past him, giving him unwanted headaches.

He had been standing outside the police building for about fifteen minutes now. _What good will it do?_ he stubbornly thought, frowning. This was not police business, anyway. They would only waste his precious time. The time he could use to catch this notorious demon, and then, maybe then, he might just bed that impossibly-hard-to-get beauty. It was a cheery thought!

"You should've come inside." Trish suddenly appeared behind him with a stack of files in her hands.

Dante looked from the files in her hand to her face. "What for? I'm not your chauffeur," he said in an annoyed voice.

"Whatever, let's just go back to the office," she said and tucked golden hair behind her ear. Today, she had finally decided to look decent and felt strangely content that nobody stared at her.

"You know," he said and wrinkled his nose, "you better have more than ' _whatever_ ' to tell me."

"They don't know much," she said and clutched the large stack to her chest.

"How did I know—how did I know!" he said and rolled his eyes. "Those witnesses had more information. We should've at least talked to the first victim's father. But no! You just had to waste our time."

"Shut up, Dante!" she said curtly and raised a finger when he opened his mouth to retort. "I've been telling you from the start to be serious. And besides, we came here to get the full details on your school-boy crush. I just decided to pick up extra files on the case that may end up helping us. It's not like you've been much help, anyway."

"It's not a crush. I just want to do her in a very mature and adult manner," he said lazily and turned around to open the car's door; and quietly, they left the busy city behind them.

# # # # # #

Dante flicked through the over-used pages of Emma's diary. So many pages were left empty. Almost half of the diary was left untouched without a single word. Trish said the police found it hidden in a cheap Chinese vase after they searched her home. He did not like her crazed writing. She was almost obsessed with this ' _L_ ' fellow. Scribbles of trembling sentences ran over the pages—numerous and without much of any meaning.

" _I love you. I miss you. I want you. I will die without you."_ The words were repeated over and over again on so many pages. It looked like the writing of a madman. Teardrops dotted the page, appearing dry and muddy on the clean white pages. He turned another page and read some more.

" _How I miss you, how badly I want you . . . you don't know. You just never know. Why don't you leave her and come to me?"_ Page after page of the same unrequited lines of obsessive love. It was starting to give him a headache. _"I hate S. All she has ever done is take things from me. But I will change that. And see? You are now mine. We will be together . . . always."_ The last entry ended.

He closed the diary. _S and L?_ He smiled to himself. It was not that hard to guess: Salome was the ultimate rival and Leon was the love of her life. "Feels like a freaking Sunday-night soap-opera," he said slowly and threw the diary on the table. That was enough drama for one day.

"What do you think, then?" Trish asked and looked down at her new shoes. She had been shopping nonstop for the past few days. It was sales' season.

His eyes left the flame of the black candle sitting on his table and turned to her. "What do you mean? I think we've already gone over this," he said with a wave of his hand.

"These people are probably being delusional. I think we need more facts," she said and then looked a little puzzled at her own words.

"Great, a demon agency talking about scientific facts," he said and flicked his right wrist like he was whooshing a fly away. "You know what I run here, don't you, honey? It's our job to be delusional!" He threw her a fake smile and then wore that same irritated look again.

"It doesn't make any sense," she spoke again and folded her arms. She still looked very unsure.

"And you being a carbon, but a very, _very_ fashionable, copy of my mom makes so much sense," Dante said and leant back into the big chair. "I think this detective crap has ruined your clear-thinking head. We hunt demons. End of story." He waved his hand and looked at her pursing her lips.

"The hotel manager said that he saw the first victim taking the last murdered girl into a room," she stopped, her eyes running around the room to find some meaning, "but then . . . she disappeared. The room was empty and the body was tossed out of the window."

"Hot lesbian action!" He winked and blew a whistle.

"And then, the woman we visited about two blocks away—" she said and pointed her hand at the door, "—she said she saw this Salome woman's sister. I don't understand. A shape-shifter?" She wrinkled her forehead and looked over to him for an answer.

"Maybe, but I couldn't sense anything that's for sure," he said in an honest manner, thinking. He was unsure himself. He had wasted shape-shifters before and they always left a signature demonic scent behind, something he was always able to pick up. Rain or no rain, no scent or demon aura had ever escaped his senses.

"Maybe is not good enough," Trish sighed. She looked tired and lost. "If we don't find this thing soon, it's going to kill again. The weather news says there will be more rains in the coming days. Who knows who this demon will kill next." She slapped the sides of her hips and looked up at the ceiling rather dreamily.

"How many girls are left in this—" Dante broke off, trying to think of some sarcastic remark to fit in with the situation, "—sorority-girl lesbian-band? Except for Salome, of course."

"Lesbian-band? Really, that's the best you can come up with?" she said, looking stern.

"What do you want me to say?" he said and raised his hands. "Who knows what kind of relationship these chicks had. Renting rooms, hanging out at restaurants—and—and shopping?" He looked almost shocked.

"Yeah, who does that, right?" she said, forcing sarcasm into her flat voice. "And why the special treatment for that girl, Salome? You are acting very weird, you know that? Asking for her details, day-dreaming about her. Is there something on your mind?"

"First," he paused and pointed up a single finger, "it isn't special treatment. I just think I can change the lesbian in her. One night with me and she'll just forget that girls even exist. Second, yes, there are plenty of things in my mind about that girl, but I'm not sharing them with you!"

"Whatever—can we get back to the important stuff?" Trish said and raised her eyebrows high. "By the way, why did you say _maybe_? What else could it be?"

Dante inhaled sharply and put his hand to his cheek. "I didn't sense anything. I think I have told you that—about a million times before!" he said and put on an annoyed expression. "It could be a skin-walker."

"A skin-walker?" she asked, her features tightening in confusion. "How's that possible? None of the women were missing their skins." She narrowed her eyes on him. A thought prodded her: _he's hiding something_!

 _She's got a point,_ Dante thought. Was Salome really dead? But he could smell her virility, her palpable beauty, her flowing scents—how could she be dead _and_ alive? He knitted his brow and cast his gaze on the floor. "I don't know. Just a thought," he said after a long interval of silence. "Maybe that Emma is the killer? That woman saw her, but no one's been able to find her body. She could be the one changing into girls, screwing with them, and then sucking on them. Somehow, that came out wrong, but that's what I think."

"The other girls are still missing, too," she wondered and cupped her chin. "But you can sense skin-walkers, can't you?" She met his grey eyes and held her gaze.

He bent his head down in disappointment. "Yes, I can," he sighed out in a whispery low voice, looking almost lost and defeated. "But we can't be sure. Maybe, this is a different kind of demon. Maybe, it's found a way to mask its scent. I mean, why does it always kill in the rain?"

Trish placed her chin on her curled fingers. "The woman in that masked queen manor used to do a ritual," she shared her thoughts aloud, "she always used to do it in the rain. Always. But not much is known about it. What I've read is that she used to play with . . . I can't even explain it."

Dante titled his head to one side. "What? Play with women, men, fake Victorian phalluses, dogs, babies?" he asked rather nonchalantly and then turned his eyes away when she created a horrified expression at his last few casually chosen words.

"With snakes!" she breathed out loudly. "Honestly, Dante, you are just disgusting."

"I didn't mean it like _that_! What's wrong with you? And that was my last guess. But what did she do with those things? I've heard some women have quite the fetish for them—if you know what I mean," he said cheekily and grinned at her.

Forcefully, she changed the look on her face and spoke again, "like I was saying, nothing much is known, but she used to do this ritual with snakes whenever it rained in the falls." A look of fear hovered over her calm face. "The faces she used to steal . . . no one is sure if she even did that or not."

"A corruption of the story, then?" he asked and lifted his eyes to meet hers.

She nodded. "The faces were simply cut off, and the strange thing is, people swore they saw the dead girls' years after they buried them. I'm just not sure why she used the snakes." She spread out her fingers in thought. "I can't help but think that this could be—"

"Skin shedding?" Dante pointed out and drummed his fingers on the table. "But this is just a wild guess. I haven't come across anything like this before."

"But you've been able to trace their scents, too. This could be something different," Trish guessed and watched a slight shift in his blank expression.

"I don't know. I think we just don't know enough yet," he said and got to his feet. "Can I see her details?"

She directed her suspicious gaze to the files scattered on the pool-table. "Here," she said and held out the files. "Tell me if you find anything useful."

He did not say anything and picked up the file from the table. He opened it and ran his eyes down the details of Emma. Height: five feet five inches, complexion: fair, hair: light brown, eyes: light brown . . . almost yellow. Age: twenty-six, and the rest was unimportant. He turned the page and looked intently at Salome's picture.

She was a good four inches taller than her sister. Age: thirty-five, hair: black, eyes: dark brown; the only thing that caught his attention was her marital status. She was widowed about a month ago. That struck him as odd. When he looked down, he was not all that surprised: his name was Leon. _So the murders began not long after?_ he thought to himself, trying to remember her eyes. He could not!

He tried to remember her again, and a second later, he saw her in his mind, beautiful and inviting, naked under the moonlight; but her eyes, he just could not remember them. Only in his dreams they glimmered through the airy mist like two sparks of ember. Why did he see her that way? Why did she have her sister's eyes? He tightened his jaws; who was it? Salome or Emma? Were they both dead? Was it someone else who had eaten into their bodies and was now flaunting them in front of him?

His throat constricted under the pressure of his scattered thoughts. _Salome, dead—no, alive—_ his eyes widened and his head began to spin like an out of control merry-go-round. He clutched the side of the table and slumped against the wall for a moment. His heart was beginning to skip beats again. It was close.

 _This damn scent again_! Dante thought and controlled his ragged breaths that were threatening to escape his throat. A shroud of haze over his eyes obscured his vision. He closed his eyes and counted, taking each breath with care until they were normal. His heartbeats stopped racing, and soon, only a small thud of his heart resonated through his whole body.

"Are you a'right?" Trish asked, standing close to him. A look of concern enveloped her fair face.

He rubbed at his eyes and opened them. "Yeah, I'm fine. This case's just givin' me a huge pain in the ass," he said off-handedly and slapped the file on the table.

She stared at him for a few seconds as if trying to unmask a hidden lie. "I'm going to check the barrier outside the agency," she said and walked out of the office.

His eyes found the sun again. It had dipped a little below the horizon—red and fiery against the sky. He could only see about half of it behind _Love-Planet_. A splash of orange had spilt out from behind it, stretching out for miles. It would be dark soon. It was about time he checked those things again. He walked around the big table and opened the last drawer. There it was, the ugly looking doll, still lying safely under the knick-knacks and women magazines.

He took it out and looked at it. "What an ugly doll," he said to himself and examined the last bit of dirty pink flounce still hanging by a couple of threads to its tattered gown. A swirl of scents surrounded it, but this would be the first time he would actually try to separate them. He brought it close to his nose. His nostrils flapped, and when the scent crept into his nose, a stabbing pain thundered in his head.

Dante's fingers trembled around the doll and his hand shot for his temple. He clenched his teeth, feeling his strength leave him; but then the sensation was suddenly gone. He breathed loudly, keeping his eyes closed. The doll rolled like a rod in his loose grip. When he opened his eyes, the room swayed into view. "The barrier . . . " he whispered and looked around with hazed eyes. The barrier was keeping the scent at bay.

When the feeling receded, he brought the doll close to his nose again. The same three scents. The doll was buried not that long ago! He placed the doll on the table and opened the first drawer. The black pearls looked shadowy on the white papers. He picked them up and watched as they dangled back and forth like a swing, looking beautiful and new.

A mixture of familiar scents lingered around it: Emma, Salome, and her dead body. As he stared at it, he could feel his head getting lighter. It was as if he had plunged underwater and was drowning. He forced his eyes open and looked at the blackness of the pearls react to the blue light in the room. They were charmed with something!

 _She charmed the pearls?_ Dante thought and put them back into the drawer. He just had to be sure. She used two objects to bind this place . . . to make the scent stronger? No, it had to be more than that. His thoughts came to a sudden stop when Trish walked through the front door. Her cheeks were flushed with the rising cold.

"It's fine," she said and closed the door. "Did you find anything important—like her bra size?" She gave a soft laugh and grabbed the files again.

"Sadly, no," he said, looking sad. "But I need you to do something for me. You've been practicing magic, right? Take a look at these." He took out the pearls and threw them at her.

She caught them in her right hand. "Why?" she asked and carefully examined them when she saw the light reacting with the pearls. "What—aren't these?" She lifted her eyes to look at his sober face.

"Yeah," he said and grabbed the doll from the table. "Why do you think it's doing that?" He positioned its torn old dress over the black candle Trish had left burning on his table and watched as it quickly caught fire. She said this morning that the candle was for protection or something. He really was not paying much attention then.

"What're you doing? Is that a doll?" she asked, taking a few steps to look at the doll that was starting to melt.

"I guess it is," Dante said in a calm voice and turned it around to see its eyes and face sag like an over-cooked pie. "Anyway, any ideas?" He placed it back on the table and returned his attention to Trish.

"I don't know—and what the hell, Dante! You're not telling me something. I know it!" Trish said angrily and bent forward to look into his eyes.

He sighed. "I found this doll the day we went to see that woman. The one who had a daughter—remember?" he said and stared down at the doll that crackled and sizzled on his table. "I thought it smelled funky."

"Smelled funky? What the hell does that even mean?" she asked, looking irritated and puzzled.

"It means that I thought it smelled like some kind of a demon. I guess I was wrong. So I burned it just now. Happy?" he lied and looked down at the doll that was now reduced to a pool of melted rubber and wax.

She cast one quick glance at the doll and then pulled her gaze up. "I'll have to go back to my office to try some spells to see if it reacts to anything. I can't say anything right now," she said honestly and looked down at the pearls. "They look ordinary to me. I can't even smell anything odd."

He narrowed his eyes. She really could not smell anything. He could not either. It was definitely a skin-walker. "Anything else on that skin-walker legend?" he asked and put on a calm face.

Trish slipped the pearls into her jacket's pocket and zipped it up. "The woman used to worship an ancient snake demon. I don't know anything about it, so don't even ask. The place was robbed a couple of months back, anyway. Who knows where the important books are now. The thief probably took 'em. Anyway, the basement of the manor—where they discovered several bodies in the police raid," she paused and tapped her forehead, "it had this giant circle drawn on the floor. I bet that's the place from where the demonic energy used to leak out."

"And you don't think anyone can go down there again?" Dante asked, shocked.

"After several disappearances took place there, the police sealed it off," she explained and folded her arms.

"We could've checked it out," he said and turned his head a little to look out the window next to the entrance door.

"What, break through concrete?" she said, throwing a wry smile at him. "We were standing directly over the basement in that giant hall."

"The basement?" he whispered, lost in thought. He heard something there: the slithering of a thousand snakes. There was something down there!

"Yes, they sealed it off completely. I'm guessing that the snakes I saw were just some demonic aura left behind when the summoning was stopped. And by the way, your potential girlfriend did her Ph.D. in local folklore and was studying this masked-queen manor legend," she said and saw the expression on his face flicker with doubt and guilt.

"Sneaky girl," he said and stretched his lips to give a half-hearted smile. "Since you have gone through the files already at the police station, mind telling me how her husband died?"

"He killed himself by drinking rat poison. Suicide, apparently," she said and stretched her arms to relax her back.

"Babe's just full of awesome surprises. Sister gone—husband dead," he stopped, "she must be so lonely."

Trish smacked his forehead. "Your head is always in the gutter, isn't it?" she teased with a cheeky smile. "I'm going back to my office to check the pearls. Want to come along? You should be safe there." She winked and walked to the entrance.

"No thanks, I can take care of myself," Dante said, sounding annoyed. His gaze followed Trish through heaps of fog until it could follow her no more. He dropped his eyes to the table. The doll had melted away and so had the palpable tower of scents. His head was free of that invisible force, but he was still so tired.

He dragged his body upstairs and fell down on his bed in a sprawl. Sleep snared him so fast that he did not even see the last twinkle of the evening sun. He opened them at the sound of gentle trickles. A long corridor stretched before him like the twisting body of a serpent. He was there in that manor again, lost and alone.

It was night. The moon was full in the sky. It was always full in his dreams, and by his feet, many snakes twisted around in a mating frenzy. It was that same dream again and the smell of sex and her wild scent were hanging in the air. He turned a little and opened the first door to his right. A mist of longing from his body took a strange form here. There on the bed lay Salome—naked and beautiful. He could see himself relishing her.

He stood there watching himself make love to her. His face was buried in her neck, and slowly, he trailed kisses down her neck. He sucked at her skin and touched her breasts. His lips closed on her tight nipples and she moaned, closing her eyes. Dante could feel his lust rising. His lips trembled, and his heart thudded against his ribs like a wild animal. Slowly, he moved lower and gently moved her legs further apart.

He lowered himself between her legs and laid kisses on her core. She arched and her back became a perfect bow. Her ribs poked out and her naval stretched into a thin line. A look of ecstasy came over her beautiful face and she closed her eyes, relishing the pleasure vibrating through her pliant body.

She was so beautiful. He desired her. It was hard to believe that it was _just_ her scent that made him so weak and pathetic. A part of him wanted to break through the mist and kill his own image to taste her. His legs were starting to tremble from arousal and he was getting really hard. The scent of her was just suffocating. He stifled a groan and breathed out a loud sigh instead.

It was as though they heard him. Salome flicked her head up and so did his own image. Both of them stared at him with blank faces. He looked back at her. Her eyes appeared brown in the dim light. He could not understand why. He always saw her differently in his dreams. He stepped back, feeling prodded by their unflinching stares, and turned around to find her standing close to him now. Her mirage in the room had vanished . . .

She looked at him with wild amber eyes now. "Dante," she whispered in such a wild, untamed voice that was so unbecoming of her; but it excited him and stirred his loins in ways that he so wished it was not a dream.

She stepped closer and he waited for her to embrace him. She stood silent for a moment, smiling mischievously. And then she moved her hands over her face. Slowly, she peeled her whole face off. Her torn ugly skin hung down from her chin to reveal Emma's bloody face. He did not understand. Then her features rippled and her mouth tore open.

She lunged at him and locked her teeth on his throat. Dante crashed to the floor and his whole body ached as if something heavy and thick was being sucked out of it. He struggled to move and his eyes began to reject the dream. They trembled open, and he found himself looking back into glowing amber coloured eyes swimming with lust and hunger. Something was in his room.

He threw it off of him and it crashed into the wall. Things clattered to the floor and a loud shriek filled the dark room. He grabbed his gun from the side table and ran after it barefooted. It moved fast like a hazy shadow and ran out of his office. He chased it and raked the walls of the tight alleyway with gunshots. It screeched in pain and disappeared, leaving an eerie human aura lingering behind it.

Dante puffed and panted for breath. The damned thing had almost sucked him dry. He stood under the dark night sky, standing alone out in the open. He looked around and saw nothing. It was gone. The street was wet and cold and a stale odour of nightlife filled his nose.

Slowly, he made his way into the alleyway. He saw a single streak of blood running along the wall. It was injured. He picked up a few drops of blood on his fingers and tasted them. It was then he realized two things: this blood was filled with his own demonic energy, and he _finally_ knew who the demon was!

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	12. Underneath the Skin

**Chapter Twelve** : Underneath the Skin

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It was about time Dante dashed these nightly dream-like pleasures to pieces. He had made up his mind that he was going to finish this off tonight—without Trish. Sun was hanging halfway in the sky; it was noon and streets were bursting with people. Trish had called this morning, and so far, those pearls seemed ordinary. It was obvious they were meant for him only.

He buckled the holster around his waist and slipped the guns in. His mind was lost in thoughts. It chased and chased the obvious signs that were there from the start. He felt ashamed. He was so easily played. He would pay it back—bullet by bullet. He looked at his long silver sword with an angry countenance and pulled it out from the wall.

Trish stepped into the office and brought in a faint smell of outside air with her. "Dante—" she broke off when she saw him put the sword into the guitar case, "where are you going?"

He zipped up the case and grabbed the black coat draped around the chair's back. "Outside," he gave a short reply and slipped it on.

"With guns and your sword?" she asked and took off her jacket.

"Just a small hunt outside the city," he said and relaxed his serious face into a smile. "I could use the money. Why are you here?"

"I was here to tell you about the pearls," she said and peered into his face searchingly as though she did not believe him. She did that often these days. Well, he had turned into quite the liar in the last few weeks. "I never thought it would be this simple—they just increase your desires." She clapped her hands together as if she was actually excited.

"What?" Dante asked, looking quite unconvinced. "That's it?"

"Yeah," she said with a wide, toothy smile and raised her eyebrows high. "I'd never have found out if I hadn't nearly fainted at the sight of that Gucci bag." She pursed her lips thoughtfully.

"You desire . . . purses?" he asked incredulously. "You and Enzo are both crazy fashion-victims. No wonder I've been getting poorer every month." He frowned and brushed away chips of whitewash from his grey T-shirt. It was falling down from the ceiling and walls, giving him a notice that now was the right time for that new paint job. If only he had the money for it . . .

"Mind your own business!" she returned and put on a challenging face. High fashion was serious business! "Anyway, it does induce a sleeping sensation and a powerful one at that. If that guard hadn't shaken me, I would've fallen asleep on the pavement."

 _The smell made me sleepy?_ he thought, standing quietly. It was an effective way to get what it wanted. "I'm going," he said and grabbed the guitar case from his table. "Destroy these pearls."

"Now?" Trish asked and watched him make his way out of the office.

"Yeah," he said and stopped at the door, "and do it now. I don't want them lying around in my office." Then he stepped out and closed the door behind him.

Gentle puffs of cold air blew in his face. He looked skyward and narrowed his grey eyes at the blazing red sun. A large cloud hung low over the far end of the sky. It was going to rain soon. He had to do this quickly, or else it would eat again today. He clenched his fingers tightly around the case's handle and set out towards the manor with a new determination. He would end it today!

As he walked past a huddle of small houses, he stopped by the ' _E+L_ ' marks on the trees and walls. It looked like a child's writing. He fixed his gaze on the writings a bit longer and then looked ahead. The faint sound of wind turned into a hiss. It was moving faster, blowing scattered newspapers and rappers across the streets.

The chill was rising and a thick pile, like a mountain, of clouds covered the sky. Dante could no longer see the sun. It could not burn through the grey cover. He started walking again. His mind was filled to the brim with uneasy thoughts. The scents were gone, but he still felt trapped, burdened by an unseen threat. It did not feel like this truth made much of any difference. This demon's vengeance was personal—but why him? He wanted answers!

His long black coat flew behind him like a little cape as the wind rushed at his legs. He walked for a good six hours, and by the time he made it to the manor, it was drizzling. Cool raindrops pitter-pattered on the gate. It was left open. One side of the gate was stuck in a rut and the other screeched back and forth.

Dante bent down and opened his guitar case. Rain dotted the sword's smooth surface and it gleamed. He stood upright and placed the sword on his back. It stuck to it as if he was a magnet. He ran his eyes around the yard. It was empty. There was no one in sight. The half cracked vase was still leaking water, but the stone lady had lost a part of her leg now.

Yellow grass, as tall as his legs, was wet with rain—the ground slick. Crusts of dirt and moss covered the entrance. It was muddy. He made his way around the yard and stepped inside the hall through the broken door. It was quiet save for the sounds of rain pressing against the windows and the roof, ringing around him with a soft melody.

The manor smelt stale, permeated with an air of neglect. Tatters of what were long curtains hung over the broken windows. They flapped as the breeze came in and brought that earthy scent inside. A tall pillar lay broken by the staircase. Its underside was caked black with mud and water. Rain came inside through the roof, making a puddle right in the center of the hall.

Dante looked down at his clear reflection. It rippled slightly as water dripped down from the roof. His black pants looked odd against the grayish-white walls. He turned his eyes and looked around. There, in the corner, was a large black stain on the floor. This was where Trish had fallen.

He heaved a sigh. There was a faint scent of it around him, and he followed it. It led him to a room right next to the hall. It swirled and whirled there. It probably passed through there not long ago—to the basement. He was sure of it this time!

 _There's got to be a secret passage to go there_ , he thought. His eyes skittered the room. The drawers were left open, like the woman took things with her in a hurry when the witch hunt for her began, and long gowns lay abandoned on the worn out bed. They were untouched, covered by decades of dust. The dust on the still thin curtains was like white flakes of snow. This place had not been touched in so long . . .

There was nothing special about the room, but the scent seemed to move further and further away from him. He tapped his fist against the wall on the right. There was space behind it—he could sense it. He punched that part of the wall, and it broke into pieces at his feet. His nostrils flapped and dilated. It smelt putrid in there!

Dante peered into the long corridor that winded forward, obscured by the darkness. He put his fist to his nose and rested for a few seconds to get his wind. His pupils expanded wide like dark pools in his eyes. They grew bigger and bigger till the whites disappeared. Light bounced off the surroundings and passed through his eyes. He could see the corridor a bit clearly now.

It looked very old. The stones in the walls were crumbling. Everything looked hazy and grey to his eyes. Slowly, he took out one of his guns and stepped into the mouth of darkness that swallowed him completely. He walked for a good half an hour, listening to the squeaks of rats and the flow of a steady draft. It led somewhere; he just did not know where. He just kept making his way down.

The stench became overpowering as he drew near the source of that odd smell. The corridor turned sharply to the right for the last time, and his eyes caught sight of a hazy mist leaking in through a heavily cracked wall. He stopped and gave it a slight push, and it fell forward with a loud crashing sound that seemed to echo endlessly. The rotten smell that rushed out made his head spin.

Dante leant against the wall, his senses going berserk. It was everywhere, mixed with the smell of rotting flesh. He opened his eyes and looked at the strange large hall. It was so large that, no matter how hard he looked, he just could not make out the ceiling. The walls were made of strange coloured stones: everything gave off different shades of grey. He felt as though he was in a black and white film.

He firmed his hold on the gun when his wide eyes stared at the corpses littered around the hall. There they were, rotting away about two hundred feet underground, the missing girls! They were missing most of their body parts.

He could barely recognize the first missing girl. Her face had rotted away beyond recognition. He would not have even recognized her if it was not for the dirty, frizzled blonde hair.

Their lungs were punched through, and broken ribs were strewn about. Several others did not even have limbs—just a few remains of mauled torsos and sad grey and rigid faces. The rats squeaked excitedly, and the empty hall made their sounds so much louder. They feasted mercilessly on the fresh corpses by the dozens . . . _so that's why they were running around in the corridors . . ._ Dante couldn't bear to look.

When he counted, there were about thirty girls in total. This thing probably attacked homeless girls who slept out in the open, completely defenseless. Some of the bodies looked fresh: blood stains around them had yet to darken. His pupils shrank a little, and he shifted his gaze, trying to find the demon that eluded his senses. He could not really tell if it was here or not. It was impossible to dig out its smell from underneath the heavy rotten stench that filled the hall.

His eyes traced the symbols running on the ground in a straight line, and then they found someone he was not expecting to see: right between the symbols lay Salome! Her hair had fallen around her beautiful face. She was not moving. The expression on his face flickered with habitual longing, and then it froze into a look of intense desire.

"Salome," he whispered, and without thinking, ran into the circle. He dropped his gun and grabbed her by the shoulders. She still did not move. He stared down at her till the whole room simply disappeared behind her lovely face, her closed eyes, and her full lips. He was so close to her that the pretty smell she exuded was so bewitching to his demon.

Suddenly, her eyes flew open, burning with an ember glow. Dante snapped out of daze, but before he could react, thin threads coiled around his throat and body. He got blasted off his feet. His sword flew away from him and landed several feet away behind thick shadows. Lost. His back crashed into a tall pillar, and the threads dug deeper into his skin. He could not move an inch!

Blood oozed out of his wounds, and his fingers trembled. His whole body ached. His head got violently jerked up when that black wire wound itself around his forehead. His own blood leaked into his eyes. He squinted through the red haze at Salome as she ripped open her dress and stood naked.

Her lips stretched into a cold smile. "You are so easy!" she said brusquely and laughed.

He licked the blood off his lips. "Why don't you come over here—the things I want to do to you," he choked out and bared his teeth in a vicious leer. "But I think you should drop the act now."

She narrowed her glowing eyes, and her expression changed just a little. "What are you talking about?" she asked in a guarded voice.

"You know, I'm not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but I'm not stupid," Dante said, struggling to move even just a little. "Change into your real body, _Emma_!"

Salome's face twisted with anger and shock. Her body went rigid. Then it coiled and twisted around like a snake. Grunts and moans rose from her lips. Her hair changed and her features rippled, and within a minute, she was completely transformed into Emma . . .

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	13. A Crime of Jealousy

**Chapter Thirteen:** A Crime of Jealousy

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Everything fell into silence. There was no sound, not even a slight whisper; but Dante heard his own life fall away in drops, bit by bit. Blood, red and warm, so full of vigour and life, dripped down. It was like sounds from a heavy bell. He felt drained, nearly dead with the loss of blood flowing freely from his body.

The thin black wires sank in some more, and a deep guttural sound rumbled in his throat in response. His whole body was snared, trapped, and tangled in wires. A thought flashed in his mind: _this is what a trapped chicken must feel like._ He moved an inch forward and grunted as the wire around his throat cut through his thick skin; his neck exploded in a shower of red.

He stopped, panting heavily. The tips of his fingers trembled, and his eyes fluttered. His own blood stood over his eyes, red and fresh. The wound in his throat had closed up a little. Now, only a thin stream of blood went down his neck. It was so warm on his cold skin.

His ragged breaths moved him like stinging electric jolts. Even a slight movement made the wires tighten around his body. Slowly, he lifted his eyes. He turned his gaze to look beyond the shroud of shadows. His weakness surprised him: he could not see anything beyond just a couple of feet. Thick walls of shadows stood all around him, but the ground glowed with an eerie red light.

Dante felt a shudder of a strange feeling shake his whole body. The ground was not glowing—it was his blood! How much blood had he lost? He stared at the large depression in the middle, filled to the brim with a rich red colour. It slapped against the stones and sloshed out of the edges as Emma walked through it.

"Can't move, can you?" she asked, wearing a hungry smile on her face. She stretched out her hand and broke the wire tied around his forehead with ease. His head hung down lifelessly. His blurry gaze dropped down to his boots to see countless red streamlets leave his body.

He drew in a shaky breath. "How much—do you want?" he asked with great difficulty and lifted his misty eyes to look up at her.

Her lips turned up and she burst into laughter. Her laughs rippled through the air and bounced off the walls, echoing through the hall. Then the sound lost its strength and passed into silence. "You're not as stupid as you look, Dante," she said, looking at his bloodied body. "I'm amazed. How did you notice?"

He really could not see the humour in all this, but despite himself, he let out a throaty chuckle. "Your eyes—they gave you away," he said throatily and stared into her eyes that burnt like two smouldering flames. "No skin-walker or shape-shifter can copy the eyes. You were in my room that night, pretending to be a little pussy-cat."

Emma's eyes shrunk a little, and she looked at him with a blank face. "Your sister's skin was a nice touch, though. I can't believe you used her skin. She was a hell lot prettier than you are, sweetheart," he said with a smile and watched Emma's face twist into a hideous look— _bet that hit a nerve_! he thought with glee! "You know, I've got a _crazy_ dysfunctional family myself—but you, honey, you have issues! Wearing your own dead sister's skin? Once I noticed that, it was a little obvious who it really was."

"Don't move," she said, staring at Dante as he feebly struggled, "they won't break."

Dante squinted through the weakness hovering over his drained eyes. "What—what the hell is this?" he grunted, unable to understand how he could not break free of them—they were _only_ thin wires!

"What? You haven't guessed?" She bent her head playfully to look back at his eyes hidden beyond the lingering shadows. "You're such an adorable little mutt. You got here by sniffing me out, didn't you? I never thought your sense of smell would be _this_ keen. Well, try smelling them again. You might just find out."

There was no need to sniff anything. The smell was already seeping into his blood. "It can't be—" he broke off, and his eyes went wide aghast.

"Yes, these are just my sister's hairs," she said with a hint of cruel pleasure in her voice. "Aren't they perfect? Perfect— _just_ perfect!" The smile playing about her lips vanished. Then her face warped and tightened. The corners of her eyes crinkled as she narrowed them to tiny pinpricks of amber.

"Why have you been feeding on me?" he asked without any breath, unable to hold back the question that had been plaguing him since yesterday night.

Emma moved away from him and leant against the pillar only a few feet away. When he looked around, he was ashamed that he missed all of these bloody pillars when he blindly charged into the circle; and even this one, which he guessed stood right in the middle.

"I went through all this trouble and you're _still_ in the dark? You think I don't know that you are a very powerful demon?" Her voice blared like a loud siren in the empty space, hitting him with such force that it felt almost alive!

Dante caught his breath again. "I knew. I'm just asking—why?" he asked and listened to his choked voice ring loudly in the hall.

She squinted down at her arm and wiped away the white slime clinging to her skin. His eyes followed as it slowly dripped down—a sluggish goo. There, by her feet, lay an irregular mass of slime, blood, and fresh skin. The soft face had empty sockets and a gaping mouth. Lovely black hair had fallen around it. He breathed loudly, unable to look away as the empty hollows appeared as though they were looking into his eyes. It was Salome!

"You—" Dante hissed and felt hot, searing anger boil under his skin, "how could you do this to your own sister? You're a monster and I _will_ kill you." He jerked his hand forward and broke a single hair but ten more coiled themselves around his wrist, bleeding him.

"That's none of your business, you damn demon!" Emma said and clenched her jaws, "you should worry about yourself. And I'm no monster—you are!" She leant against the pillar again, throwing her long reddish-brown hair back, revealing soft round breasts; and for once in Dante's entire life, they clearly didn't seem to interest him. What a dark time . . .

His eyes travelled up to find her real face, and with that skin of beauty thrown away, he found her surprisingly plain looking. "My sister, she was always so perfect," she began on her own in a heavy voice, "pretty, so pretty." She clenched her hands and gritted her yellowed teeth. "I was always in the shadows. No one cared about me. Not even the man I loved." She looked around, lost in thought.

Her fiery eyes glowed through the blanket of blackness. He could feel his vision weakening and his human self slowly receding back under the depths of his daemonic doppelganger. His hearing was drastically reduced to a dull ringing sound, and he could no longer hear the flutters of the moth trapped inside this hall. A single breath of wind disturbed her voice before it died soundlessly.

"You don't know what it feels like to be . . . invisible," she said and stared at him, creating a strange pleading expression as if she wanted an answer. "Someone like you wouldn't understand. You don't need anyone. I did. But everyone loved her. My parents, Leon, my friends—no one cared about me. I was always alone and by myself. And I hated that sister of mine."

"Why are you telling me this?" Dante said with a slanting smile. "I don't need this soap-opera Drama. I swear it, you're _really_ annoying, lady!"

Emma's features rippled like the disturbed surface of a calm lake. A shimmer ran across her skin that was beginning to look slightly scaly. She bit her lower lip and drew in a heavy sigh to speak. "You know who found out about your existence?" she asked with a curious countenance. "My lovely sister." She chuckled as her gaze flit from Dante's torn neck to his surprised face.

He did not know what to say. That tongue of his that always had something goofy to say even in the most troublesome situations was lost for words. It was dry, a worn out leather in his mouth, unable to move, unable to speak. He wanted to save his breath, but his weakening humanity fettered his words to oblivion—his tongue and lips, dry and motionless. All was sealed under the burden of his own rising darkness.

Emma's clever smile was frozen on her revolting, all-knowing features. She rolled her smouldering eyes in amusement. "Why, is that so hard to believe?" she asked and walked softly around him. "She was the one researching on this manor. It was a strange hobby of hers. Leon was dying with an incurable cancer, and she needed something to give him back his life."

She lightly moved back and forth as if gliding over the old floor and ghosting across still air. Her words smote him like knives, and his waning humanity pained him like thorns that pricked his sensitive skin. The slow rise of the daemon inside him was beginning to boil his blood almost deliciously.

The hot blood seethed madly inside him. He narrowed his eyes and saw red flashes and quick shifts in his vision. His eyes focused and unfocused on her steps, the red splashes, and the flying blood droplets, faster than the blink of his eyes. A loud grunt rose to his lips, and he cracked his neck, feeling a little detached from his human self.

Oblivious to his growing struggles, she spoke again, softly this time: "she rummaged through the contents of the occult books littered about the library here. She would spend hours at a time in this manor like a mad woman. When she would come home, she always seemed gloomy and sad. Almost lifeless. She didn't look that pretty anymore." Emma breathed heavily, and her features adjusted themselves into a full, vicious smile. "Until one day, I heard her talking to Leon on his death bed. She heard something here. Something spoke to her. A God!"

Only silence followed her words. She fixed Dante with a ravenous gaze, her eyes burning with lust. "It promised her and Leon life eternal, but only with a powerful sacrifice," her voice wobbled with passion, "that sacrifice . . . was you. It had to be you and no one else. The great serpent wanted to drink your blood to be free again!"

Emma's whole body trembled, and her fingers wriggled. Her human skin was flaking off, and beneath it, innumerable fresh scales shimmered and gleamed—the new skin of a young snake. Her red-rimmed eyes were beginning to look severally crinkled at the edges. They glimmered with hunger and animalistic longing. The dried skin circling her eerie eyes was slowly beginning to peel off like old wallpaper. She was transforming!

"But it wasn't easy," she hissed, throwing a gob of spit and a couple of teeth from her misshapen mouth. "Each seal required a fresh sacrifice. My sister was getting too emotional. She didn't care about Leon. If she had loved him like I did, she would've done this. He killed himself to escape the pain, and I . . . I killed Salome—killed my sister!"

She wheezed and panted, appearing haggard and dry. "Yes," she gasped under a spell of physical ecstasy, "I killed her, and then, little by little, I ate her _all_ up." She stretched her burning eyes that shone like two noon-suns. "I pushed her down the stairs. Down and down she fell and twisted her little neck on the final stair."

Emma whirled across the hall like a little girl dancing happily whilst singing a nursery rhyme. Dante felt disgusted. Whitish liquid oozing from her genitals squelched between her legs. It gave off a strange, head-spinning scent. He was starting to get aroused again, and he suddenly glimpsed the reason behind the scent: it was her! She sprayed it around wherever she went. It all made sense now. It was _this_ that kept Salome's dead skin fresh. No wonder he could not figure it out, and the rain washed it away. It was a nice trick.

Her loud, wild laughter tore him away from his thoughts forcefully. "I can still remember the look of uncertainty in her eyes. That blood gushing out of her lips. How good it felt when I shaved off that pretty face, gouged out those lovely eyes, and ripped open that small mouth of hers. I needed all that. I didn't do it without reason. She was the first sacrifice, after all. And I had to wear her skin to fool you, too. I know you liked it," she explained in a sweet, fake voice, and then she laughed again as though it was so amusing.

Dante's face trembled. He was not sure what he felt. His senses tasted the elixir of daemonic aura, but his body was being driven to the flimsy verges of humanity. He was dying, swaying between the tangible worlds of life and death: back and forth, back and forth—a pendulum hanging by a thin thread of life. His eyes drooped under the spell of Emma's scent and his human weakness.

But he tried to listen as soft words spilt out of her changing mouth. "The snake gave me this—this amazing power," Emma rasped and pointed her hands at herself, "the power to shift shapes. The more I ate and sacrificed, the more you resisted. It took _all_ of my power to keep you peacefully sleeping. And after I had had my fill, I was always so hungry. So I fed to keep myself alive. As you can see, I'm no longer human."

Dante's gaze ghosted over her form and a grey light glancing off the crystal-like scales embedded in her skin. She moved her jaws and tore open the fragile skin around her mouth. Her tongue split open at the tip, and almost drunk with joy, she flickered it again and again. A shade of green ran across her entire form. She was unreal, alive like a strange-looking toy.

"Amazing how things work out," she said, appearing lost in thought. Then almost dreamily, she smiled at him. He could not help but feel mocked by the sincerity of it. And as the last drop trickled from his battered body, it took him over the edge . . . that fiery, powerful sensation. He struggled inside the mass of Salome's hairs as surreal jolts ran through his body and tore it apart.

The pain he felt was unbearable as his body adjusted against its will to try and accommodate the demon rising forcefully from inside him. "Ah, yes," Emma gasped and changed her brown hair that now they looked black and messy like Salome's. "Your demon's so restless. Let it come out," she hissed and bared her pointy teeth. Her mouth was filled with them now, and she spat the last human ones out with relish.

Godly strength exploded inside his body, and he felt a sudden surge of raw energy. The taste of it was sweeter than the heavenly fruit, ambrosia. He licked his lips, casting aside the human in him and brought the fire of his red eyes on Emma, who stood still, riveted by this show of unnatural reality.

She walked lightly towards him, wearing the last remains of her human face. Dante jerked forward and broke several black hairs in one motion, but could not break free completely. Emma grabbed the sword from behind the shadows and stood by his side, looking at the trapped daemon she thought was at his full strength.

Dante's scorching red eyes were filled to the brim with daemonic abandonment. His mind and body told him one thing: to free himself and kill this thing! Her sighs echoed in his ears glutted with every sound in the hall. Countless hairs twisted around his neck and arms and smacked his back against the hard pillar again. She pressed her mouth against his shivering throat and drove her teeth in; then she ran the heavy sword through his chest.

His blood drizzled on the ground; red tore through grey, and the whole room was plunged into an ocean of red. "That was," Emma whispered and pulled back, relishing the last drops clinging to her rough skin, "amazing!" She stole a glance at the thick sword pierced through him and a cascade of blood sliding down its edge.

She parted her lips to say something more, when swiftly, Dante's hand shot forward and he grabbed her jaws roughly. An animal-like sound rose from his throat that came out as a hungry beast's loud shriek. He threw her back and pulled the sword out like nothing had happened. He tore the hair apart as though they _really_ were thin hair and lunged at her.

She did not even have any time to think or blink. He took hold of her head and smashed it down into the broken marble floor. Blood exploded out of the back of her head. "Dante," she pleaded, looking and sounding like Salome, "please, d-don't do this!" Her innocent face was betrayed by those lustful yellow eyes.

Dante bared his teeth and stilled her with his hands, and without mercy, he took her throat in his gaping mouth and tore it apart. Her loud scream fell to stillness in the hall. Lost. Her limbs trembled and blood sprayed out of her neck. Salome's countenance melted away like a cheap theatre-mask, and Emma's face slowly took its own form, frozen in its final moments.

The rush of euphoric kill slowly washed away. He threw aside the decaying head and looked at the mess he had created. In his moment of madness, he had torn her head from her body. He shifted his gaze and flinched a little as the last bits of life still shook her dead body from the neck down. He ran his eyes absentmindedly around the hall and got to his feet.

Then a sudden chill ran up his spine, and an eerie sound rushed towards him. He turned around and watched in amazement as blood and bones from the dead bodies flew to the centre, pulled there by something. Soul combined with the empty husk and mingled with every little thing there to create a single being. He staggered back, staring at the beautiful woman who looked back at him with an air of mystique.

"Hello, Dante," she spoke softly and narrowed her eyes with interest. "I don't believe we have actually met. I'm Salome."

And he did not know what to say . . .

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	14. Serpent Rising

**Final Chapter:** Serpent Rising

 **AN** : The reason for Dante's natural vulnerability is obvious: invincible Dante makes the plot very boring.

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Dante's kept staring at the beautiful woman. It really was her! Grey eyes drank in the beauty that stood amidst the slack tides of rift she had torn through. Her ruffled black hair tumbled down messily upon her shoulders as usual. They brought back the taste of memories from his vivid dreams.

Secretly, he looked at her soft, round breasts and the brown nipples standing under the ghastly chill in the air. His eyes traced the same path down her body like they always did—perfectly. Then they travelled back up to look into the calm brown eyes heavily overshadowed by the taste of death.

Silence. The only thing he could hear were the faint sounds of their slow breaths and the slight beating of her living heart. His own thudded and threw itself against his ribs. A familiar shiver of male arousal made haste to his loins, and this time, he knew he was just riveted. Emma's scent was gone, and he felt free of her devious schemes.

"You've killed Emma," she said, looking at the torn head and the battered body that lay only a foot away from it. "She must've caused you so much trouble."

Dante did not say anything. He watched as she took one step forward, breaking free of the small ghostly snakes attached to her flesh. A large tattoo of a green snake grew along her small waist and wound itself round like a firm chain. It was alive as it wriggled and twisted as if it would tear out of her delicate skin.

The thin gash in the ground was a mouth, and it grew and drank his blood ravenously from the dent until all of it was gone. The mouth was filled with tiny, sharp teeth. It was like the ones leeches had, and it rippled and expanded until he could see the darkness on the other side. He felt the restless demon inside him twitch at the aura leaking from the rift and from her lithe body. She had turned into a demon!

"I guess it was easy for you to sense," she said in a mellow voice, walking away from the clasp of the leaking miasma. "Are you surprised?" Her eyes bent on him, and his whole body shivered with excitement. The arousal he felt back then was _nothing_ compared to what he was feeling now: her scent was arousing in a way he had _never_ experienced before. It was as though he was dying—the intensity of it was so unreal! But he controlled himself. The danger was enough to keep his desires at bay.

"So the first sacrifice was to gain immortality," Dante said and brought his eyes back to Salome, whose face was devoid of any human expression. "I'll bet your sister didn't know that."

A pleasant smile ran across her calm face. "No," she said, and her eyes twinkled in the grey mist hanging above her. "But I never thought she would kill me." Her gaze wandered to the woman who betrayed her in the previous life.

"What can I say? Your sister was a total crack-head. But look on the bright side! You're alive and look just lovely," Dante said with a smile. "Now, how about you close that thing and we can go home? I need to catch that animal-show on TV."

"Why?" Salome asked in a soft whisper. "Why would you want me to do that?" She stood quietly and observed the expression on the devil's face.

Dante took a step forward, delighting in the shiver of his tamed demon that shook and wriggled under his skin, almost dancing at the inviting demonic aura she exuded. He clenched his fingers to suppress it and choked back the rising growl of feral intensity. The present danger was real, and he was sensing it sluggishly rise above from the depths of darkness that stood erect and open just behind the beauty.

"Okay, sweetheart, let's get one thing straight," he broke off, meeting her empty gaze and finding no life beyond the delightful brown eyes and fluttering light lashes, "I don't know if you're not feeling well, but that thing needs to close—right now!" A flicker of dread scurried across his pale face, creasing his smooth forehead.

It was coming, the Great Serpent, tearing through the veils of realms and twisting its body free of the chains that bound it beyond the barrier of the mortal world—this world. He heard the slow wriggle of its outer skin and felt its eyes searing his soul. He lent his ears to the murky waves of mist and heard—no, more like felt—invisible fetters clank down heavily and disappear into the bowls of blackness.

A shiver ran like a lightning bolt across its body and stole its way onto Dante's skin. "What is this thing?" he said lowly, his eyes staring at the gash that grew monstrously big. The teeth around the mouth were so tiny now. His gaze flitted over to Salome who was getting heavily buried under the thickening black shroud.

"Stop this—now!" he shouted the words as they tumbled out of his shivering mouth, and he fell down onto his knees. His whole body succumbed under the heavy clamp of raw demonic energy—so palpable and tangible that it resonated with his own demon, rousing it out of its slumber.

Dante's back painfully twisted and long teeth speared out of his gums. His lips bled, and he felt as if he had not tasted a drop of water since birth. He moved his jaws and tried his hardest to suppress the growing demon's slow crawl from inside him, to the murky shores of his mortal body. He could not see the floor: it swayed like a thin grey curtain in front of his eyes.

He tried to get up but fell forward and kissed the dirt caked on the floor. A dull moan slipped out of his mouth. He craned his neck with difficulty to find Salome slowly receding behind the moving miasma. "I said, stop this before that thing makes it through!" he hissed through clenched teeth, mustering up all his strength to get up to his feet again.

She walked through the darkness and stood close to him—her eyes empty and unsympathetic. She stared at him for a fleeting moment, and then turned her head away as if under the momentary spell of distraction. "I can't do that," she said calmly and looked at the mouth hungrily eat away at the walls and the floor. "If I stop this, I'll be stuck here forever."

He closed his eyes for a fleeting moment to breathe, unable to fully grasp her words that lost themselves under her shallow breaths. He looked up at her again and focused his madly swaying vision on her face, which was marked with the expression of a lost martyr. "What?" he managed between heavy pants and rose to his feet to face her.

"It can't come here without you," he breathed out, feeling the truth wash over him lightly like a gentle wave and go through his skin—slowly, gently. "You—you're one of the summoning keys. I don't understand—why?"

"You don't know _anything_ about me," Salome said, and her calm expression twisted slightly with a spurt of anger. "I didn't deserve to die. I wanted to live, too—experience life like you, like anyone else. But my sister took everything from me—my life, my husband. You know what it feels like to still be alive and ripped open? I died a slow and painful death at the hands of my own sister—my own blood. I'd brought her up with these hands. And this is what I get in return?"

Salome's lower lip trembled with emotion. She raised her trembling hands and whispered: "I never really lived my life. And this—this is what I deserve?" She stifled the sob burning her throat and lifted her eyes, crying tears of blood. Thin red lines streamed down her face. Her eyes became hard and dead again. That last glimmer of human emotion lost its trace behind her new death as a mortal.

Dante did not know how to respond. His eyes wandered over her face and the mask of a dead expression, which hid the last touch of human feelings lingering beneath its impenetrable layer. "You've got to stop this," he said in a dry voice and raised his hand high to call the sword that came tearing through the air—straight into his hand. "I don't want to hurt you. _Please_ . . . "

Her eyes skittered over the shimmering sword's edge. She observed it keenly, and then her watchful eyes ghosted over his face. "Hurt me?" she asked in a voice that hid a slight note of mockery. The snake's head inside her skin poked out of her navel. A squirt of blood erupted out of the wound, and her broken skin allowed the snake to squeeze out of her body.

It slithered over Salome's skin and covered her genitals and breasts with its coils. It melted there with a sizzle until only its outer green crust stuck itself to her, forming an eight-like symbol on her entire torso. Grey mist made that dead skin glow on her body like a green flame. He watched, bewildered, as green colour rose up to her eyes and eight snakes wriggled out of her small back.

Their heads hissed and watched him with their crystal dead eyes. Not taking any chances, Dante clenched his fingers and firmed his hold on the sword's smooth hilt and launched himself at her. The keen tip speared through her stomach and ripped open her back. She got dragged several feet back. She stood still, pinned to the pillar behind her. Her lips shook with the pain of his sword still stuck inside her body.

Salome lifted her eyes to meet his, and he felt as though he should say something. "I-I'm sorry," he said lowly and pushed the sword further in, wrenching a loud and painful moan out of her. She slapped her hands against his chest and weakly tried to push him back. Her hands trembled with the last traces of a frail demonic life. The snakes behind her thudded to the ground, and she went completely still.

Her head bowed down, and her hair fell down in a black cascade on his silver sword. Blood spurted out of the large wound and flowed down her inner thighs. It was too red on her strange, grey-looking skin. He heaved a sigh and steered his gaze away from the beautiful woman, who was already dead. He looked at the hole that only grew larger. It surprised him.

He slackened his grip on the sword's hilt, his mind racing. Had he killed her for _nothing_? He swallowed the lump in his throat and stole a glance at her. She was not moving. It was a strange feeling of guilt and longing. He kept staring at the face hidden behind the curtain of black hair. Her arms hung lifelessly by her sides.

He took in a breath of cold air and grabbed his sword's handle again. Then he felt it come alive and beat inside her chest. Her arms shot forward and took hold of his silver sword. She lifted her head up that convulsed almost mechanically with a new life.

"Why are you sorry, Dante?" she asked and pulled the sword's tip out of her body. The large tear closed up almost instantly before his wide eyes.

Dante drew the sword back with haste, put all the force he could muster into the coming stroke, and desperately tried to plunge it back into her breast. This time, he aimed it straight at her heart. She swung her arm wide and backhanded him hard across the face. The surroundings whooshed past him. He did not even know what happened and fell smack into the wall at the far end of the hall. The large rock poking out of the ground ran through his back and burst out of his chest, tearing his heart into pieces!

He pulled himself forward and clutched at his bleeding chest and sensed his demon reconstruct his dead heart anew. It came alive with a loud and resounding beat and jumped in his chest. Within seconds, he was fully healed, looking at Salome standing alive not far away from him. His sword had failed to kill her—it had not even left a scar for her to weep over. She suddenly looked unimaginably beautiful as if she had been born again—a carefully crafted statue imbued with a life that brought the message of his death. Her beauty was too unreal, tainted by the demon in her.

"You're not as strong as I thought you were," she remarked, getting pulled up into the air. One of the snakes on her back was dead. The other seven dug their fangs into the wall above and the tall pillars around her. She was like a bud of a newly bloomed flower. Her watchful green eyes mocked his mortal half.

Dante picked up _Rebellion_ from the dusty, broken floor and turned to look back at her. "If you close this thing, I'll still let you go," Dante breathed, unable to detach himself from the carefully woven dreams of his. They were unreal, but she was so real and alive. Her scent was getting to him again. "I've got no reason to kill you— _if_ you stop what you're doing."

"I told you before," she said and crossed her legs, hovering in the air like a goddess, "I don't want to stay here. This world reminds me of my pain and past death. But I can't leave unless the Serpent takes my place. And you're not strong enough to kill me again—I won't let you."

He scoffed and sniffed the stale air that reeked of the coming creature. Her pretty scent was almost gone now, buried under the rising Serpent's stench. "Babe, you don't want to test me," he returned and aimed the shimmering tip of his sword at her. "That's why I'm asking you to behave yourself before you manage to completely _piss_ me off!"

"I love your bold attitude," she broke off and looked around as though he was not important, "it's silly and very . . . strange." A wisp of a challenging smile just ghosted over her full lips, and, suddenly, one of the snakes stretched out and swooped down at him.

Dante doubled back and jumped several feet away to escape from the bone-crushing fangs that drilled a hole into the marble floor. Grit and dirt flew up into the air, and the snake lunged through them with its jaws wide open. Dante reached for his back and pulled out his gun. He was too slow. The snake took hold of his arm and slammed him into the wall.

It twisted its jaws and drove its fangs into his skin. It drew deep on his blood and took on a red shade before he grabbed its head and ripped it from its body. Blood sprayed on his face, trickling into his eyes. He firmed his grasp on the gun and fired at Salome. The bullet pierced through her navel. A perfect aim! She fell forward, her eyes widening with shock, before another bullet hit her square in the heart.

Salome's head tipped back, her hair flying behind her. Then, as if she was a mechanical doll, her head fell forward again. Lightly, she touched the wound in her chest, and right before his eyes, the wound disappeared. The dead snake lying lifelessly at his feet turned to dust and disappeared, leaving six of them behind her.

Dante's hand trembled. The demon had risen up and was just touching the calm surface of his humanity. His grey eyes turned red, and he bared his fangs, smiling. "This wasn't the playtime I had in mind for you, sweetheart," he said huskily and licked his lips, feeling her aura tease his genitals almost painfully, "but I still like playing. Now, why don't you be a good girl and come down here so we can play a _different_ game?"

He craned his neck and clucked his tongue. She glared down at him and the pasty smile that seemed to irritate her a bit. "You're irritating—I dislike you," she said with a frown, swinging back and forth as if she was riding a swing.

"But I love you," he teased and jumped up. He threw his sword forward and cut the heads of three snakes. The sword whirled across the hall like a silver specter and rammed into the roof above. She put her hands forward to hit him. The last three disappeared into her skin again.

He grabbed her wrist, swung her around, and pulled her back against his chest. She moved her free arm to try and reach him, but he took hold of that one, too. He held her wrists tightly in his grasp and squeezed her chest under his tight hold. Her heart skipped several beats as he landed on his feet with her held prisoner in his arms. This was it. He had to kill her heart! It was the only way . . .

Salome struggled and twisted in his tight embrace as his force steadily mounted to still her trembling heart—her hands clenched, unable to fight back the demon's strength. Her back twisted and the three ghostly snakes burst out and pierced through his body, but he did not let go! Blood gushed out of his wounds and rained on the floor.

Dante squeezed his eyes shut, choking back groans from sharp stabs of a terrible pain as snakes pulled back into her demonic body and speared through his torso again and again and again. More of his blood drizzled across the ground—the sacrifice of a martyr—but her pitiful moans did not soften his grasp; he kept increasing the force, crushing her pumping and pulsing organ-of-life from all sides. There was no escape!

He kept his demon at a distance, not desiring to crush her form completely. She fought back weakly. Her last breaths tore from her lips, and the snakes stopped moving. She stopped as well and went as still as a lifeless doll in his arms. He opened his eyes and sank down to his knees, setting the very still woman on the floor.

The symbol on her torso melted away, revealing her whole body under the pearly grey mist. Her wide eyes stared off into the distance. She was dead . . . again. He heaved a loud sigh and looked sadly at the woman who died again in her second life. The snakes lodged in his chest turned to dust, and he healed himself, not moving his gaze away from Salome crumpled on the floor.

Weakly, Dante raised himself up to stand. His gaze still lingered on her before he grabbed his collar to take his coat off. He wanted to cover her body up before he took it out of here. His fingers squeezed the thick fabric; his eyes did not lie: the hole was . . . still there! It had grown even bigger and eaten more than half of the hall. The leech's mouth there was no more. Instead, he saw countless rings of teeth inside its body. It was like the inside of a wriggling worm.

He stared, lost in a flurry of thoughts and confusion, watching as the rift tore through the mortal realm's barrier and stretched out over and under his feet, the rings stretching grotesquely there. He grabbed Salome and jumped back, keeping a safe distance between himself and the widening tear in reality. "What the . . . hell?" he rasped, looking down as Salome's skin melting away like wax in his arms.

His gaze skittered back to where she was, still lying on the ground where he had left her. Her body went through the same transformation, and like a film playing in reverse, she stood up together with the dancing snakes again, wearing that same eight-shaped glowing tattoo on her beautiful body.

"Eight," he wondered aloud, bringing her intense gaze to himself, "that symbol represents eternity. You're immortal . . . " She smiled, relishing the fact that he _finally_ understood something.

"You're so foolish, Dante." Her words sounded mellow and rich, filled with the knowledge of Reality. "I told you, you aren't strong enough to do anything, and I'm not strong enough to accept an immortal existence here. Don't we have something in common?" She hovered in the air and tipped her head back under the shower of demonic aura. All of her snakes combined together and swallowed her whole.

"How stupid of me that I thought I should go easy on you." He shrugged his shoulders and let himself willingly take a draught of demonic elixir. It flowed through him and gave him the energy of an invincible immortal. His red eyes stared at her, glowing like a philosopher's stone on his face.

Dante's obedient sword flew over to him without a slight pause. He raised it up and clove through the serpent in one hasty dash. Its lower half fell to the ground and instantly grew back again. He relentlessly lunged at her, trying to stab the sword through her heart; but, despite his enormous strength, it could not cut through all the thread-like snakes that popped up to defend her.

Wreaths of snakes sprouted out of the serpent's body, dug into his skin, fed on his demonic energy. And no matter how many times he cut up the pesky snake, it healed in the blink of an eye. His demon was leaving him, and the strange rift was swallowing the room whole. The ground under his feet was gone and so was the roof.

His staggering steps made the watery rift under his boots ripple unnaturally. He wheezed and sank onto the floor. The terrible demon was not coming to his aid and had lost itself in a serene slumber. He bled from his mouth, unable to bear the brunt of such an enormous and eerie aura that was choking the very life out of his mortal-half. He needed the strength of the demon to fight it. This was an unwinnable battle—a mighty foe!

Dante's chuckle turned into a loud and rough laugh. "I guess you were right," he admitted and wiped the blood off his lips, "I can't even seem to hurt you—you've eaten all my demonic energy. I gotta say, well played. Your sister did the same thing, and being the moron that I am, I'm figuring it out just now. She was the vessel for hogging my precious energy, just like you—and I ended up bleeding her here."

"You should pay more attention, then. Stupidity is no way to get through life," Salome said, unconcerned about his inner worries and the shame from his typical lack of attention.

"Thanks," he choked out and made a childish hurt face. "But don't think I'll just roll over and let that thing crawl in here without taking you down with me. With you dead, it can't stay here." He stared back at her with a glare of absolute resolve.

She remained unmoved by his little speech. "You won't be able to break the pillar in time, let alone kill yourself and me, and perhaps, think of it as a would-be-lovers' suicide," she said and smiled politely, trying to mimic the features of her once-human face with mixed results. That smile looked so strange on her face. Almost creepy . . .

"What?" he breathed out and shifted his gaze to the lone pillar in the middle to which he was tied to not long ago. "Why didn't you tell me this before?" He returned his eyes back to Salome, his face breaking out in cold sweat, his body feeling the final seizures of mortal abandonment. Was it too late to stop it?

He charged at the pillar and crashed his fist into it. It did not budge. Dante's body was weakening, casting away the strength in his blood against his will. He was losing the will to stand, the will to fight the overpowering feeling of his own death. His eyes wandered towards Salome, who was slowly sinking beneath the rippling surface of another realm.

Dante hurled his body against the pillar again, cracking just a little part of it. He breathed loudly and exhaled a whistling sound with every breath. His demon was leaving him so fast that he could not believe he was ever born with it. He tried to ram his fist into the pillar, but the last drop of strength floated out of his body, and he fell down—exhausted.

His eyes searched for Salome, but she was drowning deep under the strange grey ocean with a ghostly smile on her ethereal face. He stretched out his hand and called his father's keepsake, but the sword travelled only halfway before it clanked down on the ruffled barrier; it did not even sense the demon in him to return his call. His hand was tangled in a thick green cord. Tiny threads poked out of it, pierced into his skin, and travelled through his blood like poison. These were not threads—these were snake hatchlings!

He tried to wipe away the tiny, wriggling, thread-like hatchlings as they sprouted and burst out of his arm. He struggled like a wounded animal, thrashing about to flee, trying hard to break away from the snakes that snared his whole body, poking and jabbing into his skin and becoming one with his blood.

His throat burnt with screams of suffering, and after stifling them for so long, a loud one tore from his throat. The slumbering demon in him was trying to tear through his soul to save him, kill him, drive him to the precipice of life. He was dying fast! His own spirit drooped under the heavy command of his demon and was getting crushed brutality to save his life.

Dante's ears heard the resounding slither of the Serpent. It was so close, suffocating him to death with its aura, feeding on him to tear through this final hindrance. His black doppelganger was still fighting it, and this was not the first time he felt that his own defender, the shadow of his soul, would kill him to come over. No matter how hard he tried to accept it, his body would not budge to let it consume him . . . because there was nothing left to consume. He was just an empty chalice now.

He understood it then, while being pulled deep into the murky depths of the swelling ocean: it was _this_ thing's aura that day that nearly killed him. It leaked in here when Emma sacrificed a victim and tore open a little rift in space to feed it his blood. His thoughts were snarled into a mess as he floated deep underwater, trapped in a convoluted web of hungry hatchlings that were still not satisfied.

His body was stilled, floating just like a single dry leaf in the wind. He felt the real shivers of death so far under the surface of the barrier. The thing was close, and despite himself, he opened his eyes and his whole body shook. His vision focused on something he was not even expecting.

Wreaths of his last warm breaths escaped his lips; his wide eyes, hidden behind the fall of his grey hair, stared at the thing before him: he was looking into the eyes of the _Great Serpent_! Those glowing green eyes looked back at him with a still and dead stare. They were colossal, bigger than the abandoned moors, stretching out for miles with no end.

He could not make out how big it was. He moved his eyes up and down and stared far and wide. It filled the entire rift, endlessness of it, and gave off a sickly green aura that clove through the grey like a sharp knife. Its massive coils moved through the emptiness and stretched so far that his vision lost the race so quickly to catch up with its body. And yet, it felt as if it was eons away, slowly making its way here, moving gently through realm after realm.

He was a tiny speck amid the oceans that grew here, looking up at the thing that was a living and breathing universe, a massive colossus, a God who would swallow this universe whole and no one would even feel their deaths! He was still lost in this spectacle of realms' deaths as the _Ancient Serpent_ broke through another veil, shooting out a long thin spear that travelled through realms at an unthinkable speed and went straight through his heart.

Dante's body did not move, but his lips defiantly trembled, feeling and expressing the pain he could not give words to. His voice was lost as his soul and demon gave themselves over to the coming Serpent. The stray red droplets, which floated out of his body, were getting sucked into the rift beyond. The web to which he was stuck was being pulled forward into the Serpent's mouth.

The God opened its gigantic mouth and revealed thick long fangs that could crush mountains into dust. The depths of its mouth were a deep black pit, and he could see no more beyond the rippling muscles of its slick inner-tissue walls. A dribble of saliva fell down from its roof, and it let out a loud earth-shattering hiss that tore through his body like a million daggers.

It receded back a little, ready to jump forward; and then, with its mouth wide open, it lunged at him and broke through the last of the half-broken barrier that crashed down like cheap glass. It grew bigger and bigger, and he knew he had less than a second to breathe; but then, it disappeared—a wispy smoke— and left behind the last traces of its loud wail. And he felt that his body was being pulled out of the ocean.

He put his hand out and tried to grab the sleeping Salome, but he could only brush a finger against her cheek. She, too, disappeared, lost behind the many veils that grew back again before his eyes—one by one. The grey mist faded away, and he heard a familiar voice greet his ears.

"Dante!" Trish shouted, her face hovering over his, "Dante! Talk to me—say something!"

Dante took in a lungful of air. His eyes focused on her concerned face and the light bouncing off the sweat on her cheeks. He touched his chest and sensed the demon breathing safely inside him.

"Wha—what are you doing here?" he asked in a weak voice and raised his head a little to look around. His head was lying in her warm lap, and he was back in the hall.

"Are you okay?" she asked and brushed away the bloodied grey bangs. "If I hadn't made in time, you could've been killed. How could you not tell me? What's the matter with you?"

He sighed and turned his eyes away. A new sun was climbing up the horizon. He could not believe it was morning. "It's morning already?" he asked, confused. "How long was I down there?" He brought his eyes back to her face.

"The whole night, I guess," she said, studying his tired face. He looked gaunt. "You should be ashamed of yourself. I searched everywhere for you. And then it hit me! You were so curious about the basement that day. So I came here as fast as I could. You're lucky I made it in time."

"Yeah," he said and sniffed the cool air, "the thing ripped me countless new ones—lucky me, huh?"

"I love it how you shove fifth-grader jokes into every sentence to look cool. They don't work half the time, you know!" Trish said, irritated.

"Hey, I _am_ cool," he defended and jabbed his finger into the air. "How did you pull me out, anyway? And did you see that thing? Even its sneeze would've turned me to dust." Dante's countenance expressed nothing but wonder and amazement.

"The floor was crumbling down. All I saw was a large green pit and you hanging down from the pillar. So I jumped down, broke it, and pulled you out with one of my protection spells," she explained and narrowed her right eye against the glare of the sun.

"You didn't see it?" he quickly asked and propped himself up on his elbows.

"See what?" she asked, meeting his grey eyes.

"The huge ass snake, what else? There's no way anyone could've missed it. It wasn't exactly a garden variety snake—fucking crazy huge, I tell ya! Like . . . Enzo-is-pretty crazy!" he said in awe, looking up at her.

"You saw the thing the woman used to worship, I guess—maybe?" Trish said, unsure as to what it even meant. "I wonder why I couldn't see it."

"Because you weren't trapped in the rift. Anyway, never mind. What about the bodies?" he asked and tried to get up.

"Forget it," she said and placed a hand against his chest to stop him, "they're burnt to a crisp—probably because of the summoning magic. And you just said rift? What're you talking about?"

"Can we talk 'bout this at home? I'm hungry," he complained and gathered his battered body to a sitting position.

Trish did not protest. She helped him up to his feet, and together they left the dilapidated mansion behind.

# # # # # #

The bloody case was _finally_ closed! Trish copied Emma's writing to fill in the final pages of the case-file, detailing all the gruesome deeds: how she murdered and ate her own sister; how she killed and sacrificed her friends; and in the end, committed suicide by burning herself along with other bodies.

The police did not reveal much to the public about the crazy young woman suffering from a _Dissociative-Identity_ disorder, who followed the long-dead cult that was once a revered religion of the people in that long-abandoned village; but Dante did not care about any of this. He was paid a hefty amount of money to pay off his debts and buy a few new things to keep himself happy.

His office was left in a mess, though. Files cluttered his desk and the precious pool-table he had not touched in weeks. He grabbed all the files and burnt them in the fireplace. Trish protested, but that was what she always did.

"At least, keep the sisters' file!" she protested, standing behind him with her hands on her hips—the usual posture. She was about to launch into one of her lengthy speeches about responsibility and stuff.

"Why?" Dante asked, sitting down by the blazing fireplace. "The case's done and I don't want this around. It's depressing."

"Fine, have it your way," she returned with a loud grunt and stomped off to clean the pool-table.

He tossed the whole file in, along with Emma's picture, and picked up the last picture from the table: it was Salome's picture, looking back at him with a serene smile. He took one last glance at her beautiful face and threw the picture in the fire. He kept looking as it turned and shriveled in flames. And soon, her face was lost in the blackness.

The last memory that came into his mind was of her disappearing behind immense distance. He smiled, knowing that she _finally_ found peace in her own life—her own world. But he could not help but feel that there was something really tragic about it . . .

# # # # # #

 **The End**


End file.
